


How To Train Your Norse Trickster God

by LokiOfSassgaard



Category: Marvel, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Post-Thor (2011), Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Mindfuck, Stockholm Syndrome, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 41
Words: 82,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiOfSassgaard/pseuds/LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fight on the Bifröst, Loki falls to the unluckiest town in New Mexico.  Stranded without his magic and desperate to leave the realm, he takes the first human shield he finds and uses her to guide him halfway across the globe.</p><p>–</p><p>On hiatus, probably until people figure out that this is a rapefic and stop trying to convince me it isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the header and all of the tags attached to it. I will delete the fuck out of comments on this fic if they seem to come from a place that is excusing Loki's actions, or berating Darcy for defending herself. Seriously, if you want a fluffy romance, go somewhere else. You will not find it here, no matter how hard to try.

Two satellite crashes in three days was a difficult and tricky story to spin, but difficult and tricky were SHIELD’s specialities. With the Quadrantids peaking that week, they had a ready-made excuse for even the most far-fetched, including the particular brand of far-fetched New Mexico was already known for. If anything, the conspiracy theorists were starting to sound like the most rational people in the whole debate. Few people believed even for a minute that either satellites were satellites at all, with theories ranging from some new Stark tech being tested to the old fall-back of aliens in the desert. Though the theory of mutant activity was never ruled out entirely.

It was pure luck that SHIELD were already nearby when the second satellite fell to Earth. And it had been very good luck at that. Had there been any witnesses, covering up a man-shaped satellite would have required so much spin, Earth’s entire orbit and rotation would have been knocked off-balance. Without the Bifröst to guide the man-shaped satellite to a safe landing, the descent should have disintegrated him, and the impact liquefied whatever was left.

Norse gods apparently did not lend so well to either outcome, fortunately.

—

Darcy hadn’t been told anything about anything. Which wasn’t anything new, really. She’d been able to work out a few things on her own though — something in Jane’s funding had changed in a very big way, and it probably had something to do with SHIELD. But for the most part, she was in the dark, just like before. Despite Main Street being flattened by a Transformer on steroids, Darcy was still stuck in Puente Antiguo. Winter term had only just started the week before all the crazy started, and Darcy needed the credits if she was going to have any hope of getting her degree in the spring. And not only that, but apparently half of Culver’s campus was closed off because some idiots in tanks decided to start shooting at some other idiot on super steroids, and basically, it had been a seriously lame week for everyone.

“Oh, you are shitting me,” Darcy said suddenly, making Erik jump in his seat.

“What? What is it?” he asked, getting up to be sure she was all right.

Darcy waved angrily at CNN’s website. “My department got completely trashed,” she told him incredulously. “At Culver, right? I have to transfer to NYU, which wouldn’t be so bad I guess if New fucking York didn’t get trashed by the Jolly Green Giant a bunch of evil robots over the weekend. Evil! Robots!”

She sunk into her seat to sulk as Erik leaned in closer to read over her shoulder. What sort of world were they living in that an army of evil robots was even a thing that could happen? CNN had a slideshow of images from Stark Expo, including several of the surrounding areas all ablaze against the night sky. It didn’t look like New York; it looked like a war zone.

“I better make sure I still have a job,” Erik grumbled as he walked away. “Jane, have you seen the news?”

Darcy grumpily clicked through CNN’s coverage of the week of hell for a few moments longer before deciding that it was all too stressful to deal with. She checked the weather instead. The weather practically dictated her day, and she found herself checking the forecast obsessively already.

“Hey, snow in the forecast, so I’m gonna go home then,” she declared loudly, not expecting anyone to actually listen. “You know where I’ll be if you suddenly need copies or a doughnut or something.”

She gathered up her handbag and all the random bits that had managed to escape over the course of the morning. Gum, phone, lip gloss; she even picked up the wrapper from her breakfast candy bar and threw it in the bin on her way out of the building. As soon as she stepped outside the comfort of central heating, she bundled into her hoodie and tromped off down the pavement. The thing no-one ever bothered to tell her before she took the internship, aside from the risk of being flattened by an angry, steroided Transformer, was that New Mexico was _cold_. When she woke up her second day in Puente Antiguo to find a snow flurry outside her window, she almost thought for a moment that she dreamt up the whole internship up. And then she saw the dingy hotel room she was in, and a sad-looking cactus in the snow outside and seriously rethought her life choices.

And then the snow stopped and almost immediately melted, leaving behind only bitterly-cold wind that had a tendency to kick sand around at thirty miles an hour.

The wind was back, making Darcy eager to get home. Home, in this case, being a cheap hotel room that her entire student loan for the winter term had gone into paying for. Armed with only Pell and whatever she could mooch from her mother, Darcy was in for yet another term of ramen noodles and white rice. And here, she was hoping to recover from the burn-out that had pushed her into signing up from a seriously off-campus internship in the first place.

The hotel was on the other side of town from the “lab” — about three blocks, on the other side of Main Street — and Darcy had just about got there when Jane’s huge van pulled up beside her.

“Something just landed in the desert,” Jane said excitedly, leaning over Erik to talk out the window.

Darcy’s eyes went wide as she cast about frantically, momentarily forgetting most of her motor skills. “What? Really?”

She didn’t dare say what they were all thinking. Instead, she threw open the passenger door and climbed over Erik to get into the back of the van. Before she was even seated, Jane stomped on the accelerator hard enough to make the whole van lurch. Darcy was so excited about what she knew they were going to find that she almost didn’t even mind falling sideways off her seat.

It was no surprise, finding another massive crater outside of town, just crawling with Men in Black. Jane parked as close as she was able to get and jumped out of the van to go stand where someone would notice her. As if they would have missed the van driving up in the first place. Finally, Coulson finished whatever was so important on the other side of the hapdash fence and walked up to Jane while the rest of his team of spooks carried on with their thing.

“Doctor Foster,” he greeted with a curt nod.

“Was it him?” asked Jane quickly.

Coulson gave her one of the patronising smiles he must have practised in front of a mirror. “We’ll let you know when we have more information. But until then, this is a secure area.”

Darcy watched out the open driver’s-side door, her attention quickly wandering when it became clear that Coulson wasn’t going to share any of his secrets. She hadn’t seen the first satellite crash, but she heard Jane’s description of it. There were no plastic cities built around this one, but there was still something seriously weird about it.

“Hey, is that a stretcher?” she called out, looking over at what seemed suspiciously like an unmarked ambulance. Not that she’d ever seen an unmarked ambulance before, but if such a thing did exist, it would look like the white van parked on the other side of the fence, where two men loaded something suspiciously stretcher-like into the back. 

Coulson’s gaze turned to her for the briefest moment before returning to Jane.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said in a way that sounded more like he never wanted to see any of them again.

Jane nodded slowly. “Right. Thank you,” she said in a way that definitely wasn’t sincere.

She got back into the van, slamming the door loudly behind her. “More information, my ass,” she grumbled.

Darcy moved back to the seat behind Erik before Jane could throw the van into reverse gear and put her through the windscreen.

“Seriously, did that look like an ambulance to anyone else?” Darcy asked. “It looked like someone got hurt.”

Erik cast a wary glance over to Jane as she pulled away from the site and headed back into the desert, toward town. “It was probably nothing,” he said uncertainly.

“No, it did, though,” Darcy insisted. “I mean. It didn’t look like it was Thor or anything. You could see those muscles from across the Atlantic.”

“No. It wasn’t Thor,” Jane said, her voice unnaturally steady. She stared straight ahead, not even flicking so much as a glance at either of the other two. “He had to go home and take care of some things. And home’s a long, long, _long_ ways away.”

“Yeah, but on Stargate, those Einstein-Rose things are pretty fast, aren’t they?” asked Darcy.

“Are you trying to help?” Jane asked shortly.

Erik laughed nervously, putting his hand out as if to back Jane away. “It was nothing. I’m sure it was probably just a meteorite. The showers are this week. Something might have touched down.”

“Stupid clouds. I really wanted to see those things,” Darcy grumbled.

The van went quiet for a few long moments, with only the sound of the engine and the rumble of sand and the desert being kicked up by four-wheel drive filling the space. With the sun hidden behind heavy clouds, everything seemed bleak and almost blue. With no proper roads for miles, navigation was almost entirely by GPS. 

“Hey, careful not to hit anything,” Darcy said finally.

Jane looked into the mirror to glare at Darcy. “That is not even funny,” she said.

“No, you’re right. Three times would be hilarious.”

Erik snorted, quickly covering his mouth with his hand to try to hide his laughter. Jane heard anyway and shook her head. “Oh, don’t you start too,” she warned.

“You hit him twice in twelve hours, Jane,” Erik pointed out, laughing more openly. “At this rate, I think the car would give out before he did.”

“Yeah, well. He’s not here, so I guess we’ll never know,” Jane said sharply.

The other two went quiet, both looking anywhere but at Jane. “Seriously, though. Don’t hit anything,” Darcy said eventually.

“Oh, listen to your iPod,” Jane shot back.

Erik laughed again, not even bothering trying to hide it this time. For a moment, Darcy almost considered lying and saying the battery was dead, just to annoy Jane, but then she’d have to stick to that for the entire ride back. So she pulled out her headphones instead and started the arduous task of untangling them.


	2. Chapter 2

It turned out everything was royally screwed up from the weirdest week ever, but not as bad as it could have been, thank God. Lower Manhattan was still in one piece, and NYU was going to offer a full credit transfer, considering the circumstances. 

Luckily, Culver’s admissions office had been spared in the whatever the hell it was that flattened part of the campus, so Darcy was at least able to email back and forth with her adviser about what all transferring to NYU would entail. Which, thankfully, was very little since she was off-campus that term, and the transfer was — for now — only a technical one. But come spring term she’d be in New York, instead of Willowdale. Which, really, was great considering she’d actually be closer to home, and Culver had been her second choice to begin with.

She wouldn’t let anyone else hear her say it, but the enormous green rage monster had actually kinda sorta turned things to her favour.

Yeah, that sounded really bad. No-one else was ever allowed to hear that.

She was reading over the most recent email from her adviser when the bell on the front door jangled. No-one ever came into the old show room-cum-science lab, and at first Darcy thought it might have been Jane until she heard three sets of footsteps. She turned round quickly, spotting two faces she recognised, and one she didn’t. Coulson, she knew, and she recognised Agent Sitwell, even without knowing his name. But the third man was brand new, and seemed completely bored with being led along to their little desert research facility. He lagged behind almost immediately, looking around the building for anything more interesting than printed photographs of clouds and lightning. He wasn’t dressed like either of the other two; no expensive suit or shiny black shoes. Instead, he wore some sort of body armour, as if he was ready for a fight at any moment.

“Agent Coulson, hey,” Darcy greeted, though not entirely warmly. “You come to zap us all with your neurolyser?”

Her question was almost enough to faze him, and for a very brief moment he seemed almost confused. “Neurolyser?” he asked.

“Yeah, you know. Flashy light thing that wipes out your memory,” Darcy said, miming the action with her fingers. “Because we’ve seen too much.”

“Ah.” Coulson smiled wanly and shook his head. “We don’t have those. Is Doctor Foster available?”

Darcy twisted in her seat and pointed toward the back of the lab area, closer to the kitchen. “Somewhere back there, doing science.” She couldn’t help but feel like maybe they were here to pass on that elusive ‘more information,’ but stamped out that thought as quickly as she could. They weren’t going to share anything with anyone, and Darcy knew it. 

While Coulson walked back to find Jane, Sitwell stepped up closer to Darcy. He leaned against her desk casually, and if he wasn’t one of Them, Darcy would have almost thought he was trying to hit on her. “So, this neurolyser. How’s it work, exactly?” he asked.

Darcy smiled up at him. “You’re just trying to keep me distracted from whatever Coulson’s here to talk about, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Little bit,” Sitwell admitted.

“Nice try. But I’m gonna go snoop all the same.” Sitwell made no move to stop her as she got up to follow after Coulson. He was showing a photograph to Jane and Erik, watching them expectantly.

“You’re positive?” he asked.

“No. Never,” Jane said. “Just Thor and those friends of his. I didn’t even catch any of their names.”

Erik shook his head, and if Darcy wasn’t mistaken, she thought he looked almost a little bit guilty about something. “You’re sure he’s one of them?” he asked.

Darcy leaned over to see the photograph, taking it when Erik handed it over to her. It was a candid shot, probably taken from a security camera still, of a man who looked very bored. His black hair was kind of messy and down in his face, and it looked like he was wearing clothes someone found and thought might fit him.

“He’s kinda hot. Who is he?” Darcy asked.

“He calls himself Loki,” Coulson said. Before he could continue, Erik dropped his coffee to the ground, mirroring the frightened-rabbit looks the women wore on their faces. Darcy quickly gave the photo back to Coulson and shook out her hands, as if she’d touched something unpleasant.

“Not so hot,” she said.

“All we’ve been able to get from him is his name, but you guys seem to know him. Who is he?” Coulson asked. He waved Sitwell in, handing off the photograph to him when he got close enough.

The other three were quiet for a long moment, none of them quite wanting to be the one to speak first.

“Thor’s brother,” Erik spoke up finally. “He’s, uh. Well, the according to the myths, he’s not a nice guy. When that…” he waved out toward Main Street, at the destruction that was still being cleaned up, “thing was here, Thor spoke to it.”

“He called it Loki,” Darcy said. She looked over at Jane for a moment, not sure how much she should say. Jane nodded almost imperceptibly, which Darcy took as the go-ahead to say more. “I don’t know, like this Loki guy was controlling it or something.” She didn’t know Vikings had robots, but apparently these ones did.

Coulson hummed, as if even that small amount of information had changed things. Darcy wasn’t sure she liked it.

“What, do you think there’s more of them coming?” she asked, suddenly not so sure she liked the thought of it. Up until that moment, the knowledge that she was one of the first people on Earth to meet beings from another planet had been kind of cool, even if she wasn’t allowed to really talk about it. The day Thor left, SHIELD made everyone sign so many non-disclosure agreements, Darcy was pretty sure she’d signed over her first-born as well.

But now, knowing that even the mean ones were finding their way to Earth, she wished they’d all just stay on their side of the Galaxy.

“We’re not sure,” Coulson told them. Darcy didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “Until we are, I’m afraid we can’t let you continue on as you’ve been. We—”

“What?” Jane demanded. SHIELD had done nothing but jerk them around since the day Thor showed up, and they clearly weren’t going to stop any time soon. “You can’t do this! You asked me to figure out how they got here, and now you’re pulling the plug on it two days later? This is unacceptable!” He was waving her hands around, though whether it was because she was trying to intimidate Coulson or fly, Darcy wasn’t sure.

“Doctor Foster, please,” Sitwell cut in. He held his hands out, trying to silence the room. “We just don’t want you guys out there on your own. Consider it a… supervised field trip.”

“Supervised field trip?” asked Erik. He looked between the two agents, disdain practically rolling off of him. “Because we don’t already have enough of you spooks following us around.”

Coulson didn’t quite glare at him, but it was close. There was a certain disapproval to it, and Darcy couldn’t help but laugh at, which only got that same not-glare aimed at her instead. Sitwell, meanwhile, hardly seemed to notice any of it.

“So then what’s one more?” he asked with a lazy shrug. He turned to the third man who had come in with them. Darcy wasn’t even sure when he’d wandered over, but he stood near their cork board, looking up at all the photographs of the first wormhole that Thor had fallen out of.

“This is Agent Barton,” Sitwell introduced. Barton turned round at his name, as if he suddenly realised he was on duty. “He’ll stay out of your way. He’s just here as a first line of defence. Just in case.”

All of Jane’s righteous anger seemed to have evaporated as she watched Barton look around the lab. “Are you sure that’s necessary?” she asked.

“No,” Coulson admitted. “But the way things are going, I think it’s better to be prepared for anything.”

Erik eyed Barton warily before walking back toward the kitchen. As he went, Darcy bent down to the ground to start picking up pieces of broken mug off the floor. The way things were going, every last one of their mugs would be broken by the weekend.

“Okay. Well.” Jane looked around the room, from Coulson to Barton to Darcy, and then back to Coulson again. “That’s. Yeah, actually. I think that’s a good idea, probably. Do you—Do you know what he wanted? Loki, I mean. Why he’s here?”

Coulson shook his head. “He’s been transfered to SWORD custody. At this point, we’re more worried about anyone showing up.”

Jane nodded. “Right. Okay. Thank you.”

Coulson and Sitwell both nodded in turn. “Have a good day. We’ll be in touch,” Coulson said. The two of them turned to walk out, leaving Barton behind to watch over them.

“So. Agent Barton. Do you… want anything to drink?” Jane offered awkwardly. She flapped her hands out limply by her side, looking about as lost with everything as Darcy felt.

Barton turned toward Jane, his hard expression giving the impression that he annoyed that he’d been addressed at all. “Got any Coke?” he asked easily. It wasn’t the response Darcy expected.

“Uh, yeah. In the fridge,” she said. She got up as Erik returned with a towel and a plastic bag. Dropping the pieces of broken mug she’d collected into the bag, she nodded toward the kitchen. “In here. I’ll show you around.”

Barton followed after her, taking the opportunity to scope out the rest of the old dealership on their way back to the kitchen. Darcy could already tell she was in for a fun winter term, in a totally-not-fun-at-all sort of way.


	3. Chapter 3

Apparently when Norse gods weren’t getting kicked out by annoyed parents, or trying to kill one another, they tended to keep to themselves. It had been a week since Clint, as he preferred to be called (and Darcy couldn’t help but wonder how annoying it was for him to get a coffee from Starbucks), was put on scientist-babysitting duty, and there had been nary a sign of Thor or any of his friends. It was like he’d forgotten he’d ever stepped foot on Earth. Jane was starting to seriously mope, and even on days where cloud cover was minimal, there wasn’t a whole lot of work getting done. There also wasn’t a whole lot of course work getting done, since Darcy was still waiting on her books to get in from Amazon. Rather than sit alone in a cold, depressing hotel room, with nought but her laptop to keep her busy, she spent her time in the slightly less cold and depressing lab with Clint watching over her shoulder as she obsessively refreshed Facebook and Tumblr.

“Is this all you guys do?” Clint asked. He leaned forward and pointed at an infographic. Darcy clicked it to make it slightly easier to read.

“It’s cloudy today, so yep. We don’t have one of those X-ray thingies.” She wrinkled her nose, trying to remember the word for it. “Hey, Jane! What don’t we have? Some electron-scope-whatever?” she called out.

“Radio telescope,” Jane called back tiredly.

“Yeah, that. We don’t have that. We have to do all our star-gazing old-school, and the clouds get in the way or something.” Honestly, Darcy barely understood any of it. This was supposed to be her burn-out relief before getting serious about a career in politics, and she was all too happy to spend as much of the term as possible wasting time on the internet.

But not too much time, because she still had six credits worth of lit and writing to pass. The writing was fine, but the lit was in seriously dire straits without the books she needed.

“Hey, has anything been delivered today?” she asked the room at large.

She got a vague chorus of nos from Jane and Erik, and an indifferent headshake from Clint. It turned out that’s just how he always looked — either bored, or like he was going to shank someone without warning — no matter what his mood.

“What are you waiting on?” he asked.

“My books for this class. I’m already behind because Amazon’s taking their sweet time, apparently.” Darcy frowned and clicked over to Amazon’s site, hoping to at least get a shipping update.

“Why don’t you just download them?” asked Clint, not even bothering to do the decent thing and look away while she typed in her password.

“Dude, you work for the government. Isn’t that entrapment?” Darcy was pretty sure that was the dictionary definition of entrapment. Clint only answered with a shrug.

“Yeah, with all the suits crawling around this town right now, I am not even going to risk jaywalking.” She found her order in the depths of Amazon’s confusing site map, and immediately saw the problem with her order.

“Great. Just what I need,” she muttered.

She started the daily dance of gathering up everything that had migrated from her bag and cramming it all back in.

“Hey, boss lady, I have to go to Bloomfield. Need anything?” she asked.

Jane turned to give her an almost comically suspicious look. “What’s in Bloomfield?” she asked.

Darcy got up and started making for the door. “My books, since the post office here doesn’t exist anymore, and Amazon wouldn’t ship to the hotel.”

Jane shook her head and waved her on.

“Need company?” Clint asked.

Darcy almost considered saying yes. Almost. “No offence, but I think I need some me-time.”

Clint nodded. “All right. How long will it take? I need to call it in.”

And if that wasn’t just about one of the creepiest things Darcy had ever heard, she wasn’t sure what was. “I don’t know. Hour and a half, if I’m lucky and don’t pass any cops. I probably won’t be back here though. I’m like, way behind on my homework and need to get caught up.”

“Right. Have fun,” Clint said. It didn’t sound like he meant it, but he’d been out there in that giant litter pan almost as long as she had, so he probably knew just how fun driving nearly ninety miles round-trip could be.

AKA, not fun at all.

She left before Clint had the chance to tell her she was going to be tailed by a suspicious unmarked car, or something else equally disturbing. 

She’d driven all the way down to New Mexico from Virginia, cramming all of the essentials into the back of her old Taurus — mini-fridge and a microwave she bought for her dorm, DVD player, her big book of burned DVDs, laptop, clothes, knitting bag, vibrator. Everything a growing college girl needs. She kept her car parked at the hotel, because no matter how bad the weather got, she couldn’t quite justify driving the three blocks across town to get to the lab. And now it was just more convenient, since she could walk around giant potholes a lot easier than she could drive around all of them.

She got down to the hotel and slipped into her car. If she was expecting a reprieve from the cold weather outside, she was sorely disappointed. If anything, it seemed even colder inside the car than it did out on the pavement.

“Worst desert ever,” she complained as she slotted the key into the ignition and started the car. She let the engine warm up for a few long moments before pulling out onto the road, taking the long way around to get onto the 550 toward Bloomfield. “Deserts are supposed to be hot! Warm up, car. I want the heater on.”

The drive was completely boring, with nothing along the way save sand and sagebrush, and eventually some of those weird green circles you could sometimes see from aeroplanes. Every now and then, the wind would kick a sheet of dust onto the road, making the car want to suddenly hop over into the next lane. Luckily, no-one else ever drove that stretch of highway, so if Darcy did find herself straying over the centre line, there was little danger of hitting anyone.

She got to the post office without killing anybody, and even managed to find a place to park right up next to the door. The woman inside gave her a sympathetic look when Darcy gave her the information for the parcel, which only made her wonder what the SHIELD-spun story had managed to turn into on its rounds through the rumour and conspiracy mill. Not really wanting to deal with finding out, Darcy took her books back to her car as quickly as possible.

Even though she knew what was in the box, she opened it anyway. Perhaps she just needed to actually hold the books in her hands to make the whole thing feel real. If this was what the rest of the term’s reading list was going to be like, she couldn’t wait to get started on the comparative literary merits of Stephanie Meyer’s _Twilight_ and Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_.

Actually eager to get back and get started on her reading, Darcy tossed the books onto the passenger seat and started the car again. The sun was already starting to set, and the last thing Darcy wanted was to do a desert drive in the dark with the possibility of crazy Space Vikings wandering around somewhere out there. Though, really, with her luck she’d just run over a giant tortoise or a burro or something.

She followed the highway southbound, squinting against the setting sun that no amount of sun-visor-yoga would block. If she twisted the stupid thing around any more, it was likely to break right off. And that was the exact opposite of what she wanted. Darcy was so busy fiddling with it that she didn’t even see the guy hitching until she’d almost passed him. At least, she thought he was hitching. He was closer to Bloomfield than Puente Antiguo, but if he’d broken down between the two, Darcy hadn’t seen the car on the side of the road anywhere. She pulled over and checked her mirrors, on the off-chance someone was tailgating her. Seeing the coast clear for miles, she backed up and opened the passenger door for the hitcher. Even in the dimming light, as she craned down to look up at him through the open door, she realised immediately that he wasn’t hitching at all. Someone had gone out of their way to fuck him up. He was barefoot, handcuffed, and the clothes he’d probably stolen (judging by the way the jacket he wore had been put on after the handcuffs) were stained with blood.

“Jesus, buddy. Do you want a ride?” Darcy asked, flashing another look behind her for anyone who might be after the guy.

It took him a few seconds to even look up at her. No sooner had his gaze met hers, Darcy slammed her foot down on the accelerator with a string of creative swearing. She hardly even had the time to process exactly who he was before she reacted, but the more distance between herself and that Loki creep, the better. Of all the people in all the world, she had to offer Loki a lift. Christ, who even let him out?

Or perhaps more accurately, who let him escape?

“Oh, shit. Fuck, should have brought Clint,” Darcy told herself. She checked her mirror again, watching Loki hunch up into his coat where she’d left him on the side of the road.

He hadn’t looked like he was in that bad of shape from the photo Coulson was showing them. But that was almost a week earlier, and Coulson said Loki had been handed over to some other agency. Even after PATRIOT, there were laws against beating the shit out of prisoners. But wasn’t that the whole crux of the mutant debate? Laws only apply to human beings. Darcy briefly wondered how close she was to Roswell. Before she could properly contemplate that particular thought, her stomach lurched hard enough to make her want to be sick. She stopped thinking about Roswell and all the crap that may or may not have happened there. But this SWORD thing, whatever the hell they were. They were supposed to be the good guys, right? Loki, even if he was a creep, was still a sentient being. 

A sentient being from another planet, delivered to some shady government organisation by another shady government organisation. A nice, long prison sentence never was in the cards, from day one.

Before Darcy could even talk herself out of it, she turned round and sped back toward Bloomfield. With the sun almost completely set, she had to focus more on the opposite side of the road if she was going to have any chance of finding Loki in the dark. Finally, she spotted him still trudging along the shoulder. Shaking her head at her own stupidity, Darcy turned round again and caught him up. Even as she pulled over, she knew this was a monumentally stupid thing to do. But at least if everything went wrong, she wouldn’t be alive long enough to be embarrassed by her own stupidity. Gathering up all her nerve, Darcy pulled up alongside Loki and opened the door again.

“You better get in before someone sees you,” she said uneasily. “I’ve got a shower. You can at least get clean before you become America’s Most Wanted.”

Terribly stupid. She’d never forgive herself for it, but she’d have never forgiven herself if she didn’t, either.

Loki looked over at her as if he had no idea what was even going on around him. But Darcy was surprised he was even standing, let alone having managed to get away without being caught. Finally, he seemed to have got the hint and climbed gracelessly into the car, knocking the books aside. He looked down at them, as if their very existence offended him to his core.

“Sorry,” Darcy said as she moved them from the centre cup holder and tossed them into the back seat.

As she twisted back around, she caught the sight of his wrists. In the yellow light from above, it was clear he’d been on the receiving end of something seriously not cool, and that he’d done everything in his power to get as far away as possible. The handcuffs had dug into his skin, and it almost looked like he’d actually tried to chew his way out at one point.

“I might be able to…” Darcy started awkwardly. She reached for her handbag and dug around the bottom, finding an old bobby pin. “Here. Let me see your hands.”

She couldn’t begin rationalise what she was doing, so she didn’t even try. Loki was far less dangerous while handcuffed, but she’d already gone this far down the rabbit hole, so why not?

She kept her attention on the rear-view mirror as she bit the pin, tearing off the plastic beads on the ends and straightening it out into more of an L-shape. Reaching out carefully for the handcuffs, Darcy took a steeling breath and tried not to think about the amount of trouble she was getting herself into. She thought instead of cheap sex-shop handcuffs, and losing the key down between the bed and the wall. Cheap sex-shop handcuffs were pretty much the same as the real thing, right?

Loki watched her tiredly as she fed the pin into the keyhole, trying to remember which way to twist it. She fished around, this way and that, trying to find something to catch against. She hardly took her eyes off the rear-view mirror, ignoring the way her hands were starting to tremble as she worked the bobby pin in the keyhole. Finally, she felt something catch as she turned the pin, but even after it clicked, nothing released.

“What the.. Wait.” She found the catch more easily this time and twisted it in the opposite direction. It was a tricky, tedious affair, but finally the first cuff came loose just long enough for Loki to get his hand free. He jerked away from her so hard he nearly fell out of the open passenger door. Darcy flinched away, slamming herself against her own door and curling in toward it to get as far away as possible in case he started taking swings at her. After a few moments of no-one hitting anyone, Darcy gathered up the nerve to turn back to face Loki. He was tugging on the cuff that was still locked around his other wrist, trying to pull it off as well.

“I can do that one too,” she said timidly.

He gave her that look again, like he didn’t understand a word she said. It wasn’t until she pointed at his wrists that he connected the dots and offered his hand over. Darcy worked the same process with the second cuff, twisting the pin first one way, and then the other until the lock released. Loki pulled away more slowly this time, looking down to inspect the damage done to his hand and wrist.

Darcy watched him in the dim light. It was even more apparent, with him more or less still and focused on something else, that someone had gone seriously Roswell on him. There were what were clearly puncture marks on the side of his neck, right over where she figured his jugular must be, and there was a dried stream of blood down the side of his face, starting from under his hair. Which, now that she looked at it, some of his hair had been shaved away, the rest a matted, sticky mess. Darcy was no doctor, but there was usually only one reason to shave someone’s hair like that. If she thought about it any more, she knew she was going to be sick, right there in the footwell of her own car. So she focused instead on putting her handbag into the back seat.

“Can you shut the door?” she asked carefully. “I was serious about that offer of a shower. If you want it.”

Loki stared at her as she spoke, and as confusion and annoyance and complete and utter _despair_ washed over his features, Darcy was certain that he really didn’t understand a single word she said. She had no idea how he’d got so far from whoever had done this to him, but she no longer cared. This was everything the mutant rights movement fought against, sitting in her car and staring at her like a lost child.

“Your door,” Darcy said, tapping at hers and the pointing at his. “Close it so we can go.”

She could see the moment her instructions clicked with him. He pulled the door shut with a loud bang, and Darcy would have cringed for the sake of her car if not for the overhead light going out, only making her decision suddenly very real. It was almost completely dark with no-one around for miles, and she’d invited a psychopath into her car. Brilliant.

Definitely not thinking about it, Darcy put the car into gear and got back onto the road. As she drove, she cast occasional glances to Loki, but he didn’t seem too interested in anything. If anything, he looked like he was getting kind of car sick. Of course he was. He flinched every time the car hit a bump, Darcy sincerely hoped he didn’t get sick. Her own puke in her car was fine. Gross, but fine. Someone else’s was unacceptable.

At least he stayed on his side of the car.


	4. Chapter 4

It wasn’t until she could see the lights of Puente Antiguo in the distance that Darcy realised the flaw in her plan. It was because of Loki that the town was crawling in feds, and here she was, thinking she could just drive right up to the hotel and lead him inside without anyone seeing. This whole thing was so stupid. She’d be thrown in jail forever if she got caught helping Loki out. So much for a promising career in politics.

“Hey. Hey, listen,” she said. She stole a glance sideways, not liking the way Loki was watching the road ahead with his jaw tightly clenched. She hesitantly reached over and tapped him on the elbow to get his attention. He looked over slowly, and he didn’t look scary or murderous or anything like it. He just looked sick and miserable.

“Can you understand anything I’m saying?” Darcy asked.

Loki didn’t respond at all, which was a response in itself.

“Great,” she said to herself. 

Loki started to say something that sounded like ‘yes’ and some sort of noise in the back of his throat all at once, but whatever it was he never got to finish it. He launched into a heavy coughing fit, and Darcy really tried to ignore how it almost sounded he was trying not to cry as well. When the worst of it finally passed, Darcy looked over to see him looking down at his hand, which he wiped off on the front of his shirt. She had a pretty good idea why, even if she couldn’t really see it.

It was dark, and most of the roads were unlit anyway, even before Loki’s giant robot smashed up half the town — something Darcy tried very hard to ignore for the moment. With things as they were, Darcy was already in the habit of taking the long way round, leaving the 550 before it became Main Street for that mile-long stretch, and circling round the outskirts of the town to avoid the more troublesome roads. She didn’t see anyone out watching the town, but that didn’t mean anything. SHIELD had rolled right on in and no-one had even noticed until they started taking things away from people. 

Darcy pulled into the parking space in front of her hotel room and peered around, trying to spot any hint of someone spying on her from rooftops. But all she saw was black and shadows.

“Just. Stay here for a minute, okay?” she asked, reaching out to tap Loki on the arm, but not quite making contact. She twisted round to grab her books and handbag from the back seat and opened her door. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

Holding her hand out, as one might try to convince a dog or a particularly precarious stack of paperwork to stay in one place, she slipped out of the car and shut the door as quickly as she could. Leaving Loki alone in the dark probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but leaving him with the lights on seemed even worse. All the same, Darcy moved quickly to unlock her door and toss her things onto the bed before turning on the light. The room inside was just as cold as outside, but the heating could wait a few more minutes. She glanced around once more to make sure no-one was watching her before going back out to open Loki’s door to help him out. He was shaky on his feet, and for a moment Darcy thought he might fall over right there on the pavement. As she led him inside, she tried to think about anything other than how she had given a psychopath a ride, and was now inviting him into her hotel room.

She should have left him in the desert. She should have called Clint, or the cops, or something. Anything other than what she was doing. But what she should have done, and what she could have lived with doing were two completely different things. She just hoped she didn’t become a martyr to her conscience.

Loki paused just inside the door, warily looking round the small hotel room. But if he was expecting anything specific, he didn’t let on. Darcy moved him out of the way enough so she could shut the door, not really sure what to do now that they were inside. 

“It’s not much,” she said as she locked the door. “Uhm. The shower’s back there. If you want it.”

She pointed, and Loki slowly turned to follow the line of her finger. But he didn’t really seem to see anything. Once again, he just looked confused.

“Do you need help? I mean, you know. You’re not from around here. Showers might be different where you’re from, I guess,” Darcy said. She had just locked herself inside with this guy, and was trying to think of anything other than that fact. And the way Loki looked at her, like he was trying to work out some sort of complex equation, only made it all the more apparent that unlike Thor, he had no idea what anything she said even meant.

If this really was Loki — the Loki Thor had spoken to — he should have been able to understand, though. Right? But what if it wasn’t? What if this guy just had the unfortunate luck to accidentally identify himself as an intergalactic terrorist? And now here he was, all fucked up because of it. Darcy fought back the urge to let forth a stream of obscenities as she looked at him, still with the coat wrapped round his shoulders, and what looked like scrubs with some sort of sword-shaped logo on the front. Her eyes slowly drifted back up to that missing patch of hair and the stream of blood down the side of his face.

No, he was exactly who she thought he was. Somehow, she just knew it.

“Jesus Christ, okay,” Darcy said, rubbing her face with both hands. She carefully made her way over to her dresser, avoiding any quick movements, and pulled out her biggest pair of pyjama bottoms and a Fall Out Boy t-shirt. At this point, she was starting to think that if Loki had actually wished her harm, he’d have done something about it already. She just hoped he hadn’t done anything because he was smart enough to realise she was trying to help, and not because he could barely remember how his own hands worked.

“Okay, come on.” She reached out to grab his fingers, tugging him toward the bathroom to get him moving.

He pulled his hand away from her, but followed to where she led him. As Darcy turned on the bathroom light, which also came with that annoying overhead fan, Loki peered into the room with with sceptical suspicion. In a way, Darcy was almost glad to see it. Even if he still didn’t really seem to understand anything he saw, there was at least some hope that he wasn’t completely lost inside his own head. Darcy put the clothes down on the tiny counter and walked over to the shower. She turned on the water, adjusting it to what she hoped would be a comfortable temperature for him, and put her hand under the stream.

“See, look. You can get clean.” She left the water on for him and stepped around him to leave the room. “I’ll just be right out here.” Darcy pointed toward the bed and stepped all the way out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She shivered hard, not even sure if it was the cold in the room, or everything else. One thing was certain, though. It was freezing in there. Darcy walked over to the long heater/air conditioner combo that sat under the window and turned it to the hot setting (it only had two, the other option being to just blow ambient-temperature air around).

She tried not to think about all the ways in which it had been a bad, bad idea to let Loki into her room. At some point, Erik’s library book had made its way onto the little table in her room, and Darcy picked it up and started thumbing through it again. She found Loki’s page somewhere in the middle, and even though the book was aimed at kids, it did a pretty good job as painting Loki as a murderous psychopath. Darcy shut the book and tried not to think about that either. He could have been messing with her, trickster god that he apparently was, but to what ends? Even before Thor got hit by magic lightning or whatever the hell that was, he was still a pretty tough dude. Hell, Jane hit him with her car twice, and he was fine. Loki was probably the same way. Maybe all he needed was some magic lightning of his own, and then he’d be fine too.

Darcy sat down on her bed and powered up her laptop so she could check Facebook and not think about the maybe-god who was at war with the shower, by the sounds of things. Whatever he kept banging around in there, Darcy just hoped it wouldn’t be damaged permanently. As she scrolled through the day’s posts, an idea occurred to her. She pulled her phone from her bag, wondering if Loki would even let her do what she’d planned. But first, she’d have to wait for him to get out of the shower. She should have done this before letting him in there, but it was too late now. And if it were her, she’d probably stay in there until all the hot water in the state was gone, so she figured it was bound to be a bit of a wait. Probably enough time to order pizza, at least. It wasn’t a luxury she could really afford, but damnit, she deserved it after the evening she’d had.

There was only one place in town, and luckily it was still open and it delivered. There was a short menu left on the nightstand when she’d checked into the room, and it was still there, next to the phone she never used. Checking the amount of cash she had in her wallet, she decided to go for the cheapest option, and just ordered a medium cheese pizza. 

Loki didn’t wander out of the bathroom until the pizza arrived and Darcy was paying for it, having just enough cash left over for a pathetic tip for the driver. With her pizza in hand, she turned round and tried not to laugh at Loki wearing pink panda bear pyjamas. The only thing that kept her from doing it was that Loki somehow looked worse than he had before the shower. He was clean, but now without the layer of grime, it was clear just how exhausted and messed up he was.

“I got food,” she said.

She put the pizza box down on the bed and opened it. Before she could even get to the mini-fridge for drinks, Loki snatched up the box and took it to the far side of the room.

“Nice,” Darcy said flatly. “I guess I’ll just have gum for dinner.”

She had a few cans of Pepsi in the fridge, and not a whole lot else. She took out two Pepsis and sat back down on the bed to finish checking her messages for the day, and maybe have a good, long think about her life choices. A few moments later, she was startled by the bed shifting under her, and she looked up to see Loki sitting on the other side, with what was left of the pizza in the middle of the bed.

“Thanks,” Darcy said, taking a slice. She cracked open one of the Pepsi cans and handed it over to Loki.

He sniffed at it and even tried to peer inside before he finally took a drink. He didn’t get very far, though. Almost immediately, it started him coughing again. Darcy tossed her pizza back into the box and reached out to grab the soda can from him so he could get through his coughing fit without spilling it. He held the back of his hand up against his mouth, and from where she sat, Darcy could definitely see him bringing up blood. Not much, but blood was blood in any amount.

“Okay, no Pepsi,” he said, setting it aside as she jumped back up to pull a bottled water from the fridge. She opened it and handed it to him on her way to grab a towel from the bathroom, so he didn’t use her t-shirt to clean himself up with.

She watched him clean up and down half the bottle of water, realising just how bad the situation truly was. Not only had she invited a psychopath into her single-bed room, but he was a psychopath who had probably had the ability to understand speech surgically removed from his brain. Somehow, she didn’t expect to get a whole lot of sleep that night.

“Hey, can I do something?” she asked, hoping that maybe just the sound of her voice would be enough to assure him a little bit. Even if he didn’t understand her, it at least held his attention when she talked to him.

Darcy walked back around to the other side of the bed and picked up her phone from the nightstand. “I just wanna take some pictures,” she said as she brought up the camera app. She sat down on the bed again, so she didn’t feel quite so much like she was looming over him. “Of where you’re hurt. Just in case, you know?”

It was plain on Loki’s face that he didn’t. But Darcy figured that if he objected, he’d let her know one way or another. She held the phone up and let the camera focus as well as it ever would before snapping the photo. At the flash, Loki jumped so hard, Darcy thought he was going to fall off the bed.

“No, it’s okay,” Darcy said, trying to keep her voice steady. “It’s supposed to do that. See?”

She turned the phone around to show Loki the photo of himself, close enough to show the detail of the cuts and bruises on his face, but far enough away to give a sense of scale Loki scowled and looked away from it. Fair enough, Darcy figured. She wouldn’t have wanted to see it either, if it were her.

Darcy took the phone back. “Sorry. Do you mind if I…?”

She motioned vaguely to him, trying to get across that she wanted to get a better picture of the left side of his face, as well as the cut on his scalp. Loki studied her for a long moment, making Darcy wish he’d look somewhere else. He might not have been able to understand her, but he wasn’t quite as lost inside his own head as she originally thought. His gaze was sharp and intense, almost like he was trying to look straight through her. Finally, he turned his head and pulled back his hair on the left side, showing the cut on his scalp. Now that she could see it clearly, a brain surgery cut was exactly what it looked like. It was long and almost careless, though; a slightly curved line about an inch above his ear. Darcy took a couple of pictures — one zoomed in, and one wide shot — and tried not to be sick. Part of her couldn’t help but wonder what they were looking for, though. She’d seen _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_ , and this thing didn’t look like the ones McMurphy had at the end. This was something else entirely.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. She glanced down at her phone, trying to determine her next move. “Is there… anything else?”

She pointed at his chest area, almost afraid of what she might find if he agreed to this. Loki looked down to where she pointed, getting the gist of her intentions more quickly than she expected him to. He seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding and lifting his shirt. His sides were painted an ugly mosaic of bruises and deep cuts, one of which looked like it had recently been stitched over hastily. Another longer one down his side had more torn stitches than anything, but it was far more healed over than it should have been, considering he’d only shown up about a week before. Judging how quickly Thor seemed to get better from being hit by a car and tased and everything else, Darcy wondered how much she couldn’t see on Loki because it had already healed.

The thought did not escape her that it was precisely that which those Rosewell sickos were testing.

She decided she didn’t want to think about any of that either, and focused on taking the pictures as quickly as possible. Darcy didn’t know what she was going to do with them, but it seemed like something that needed to be done. If mutants had full protection against this sort of thing, guys from other planets shouldn’t be left out, even if they were complete fuckwits. None of it excused blowing up half the town, but Darcy half-wondered if Loki even remembered doing it.

Darcy put her phone away, watching as Loki pulled his shirt back down. Suddenly, all she could think about was _War of the Worlds_. Those cuts on Loki were healing over, but with the stitches still there he was at an even bigger risk of infection than if they’d just bandaged him up. Darcy didn’t want to accidentally sneeze on him and kill him with a cold she didn’t even realise she had.

“You know what, take that off again,” Darcy said, pointing at Loki. She left him looking confused and went back into the bathroom, fetching up the old metal Captain America lunchbox from the counter. She dug through it on the way back to the bed, finding her tweezers and the tiny scissors she kept in with the rest of her make-up. Setting the rest aside, she sat down next to Loki and pointed at him again, trying to get across by wiggling her finger that he needed to lift his shirt again.

“Let me help,” she said.

Loki gave her that confused look again, but it quickly passed and he lifted up his shirt, this time pulling it off completely. He hissed sharply as he raised his arms over his head, making Darcy wonder what there was that she couldn’t see. 

“This might feel funny,” she said as she moved the shirt aside. “Please don’t hit me.”

She used the tweezers to pull out the torn stitches, starting from the top and working down. Loki squirmed and made faces as she pulled each stitch out, but it didn’t seem to be actually causing him any more pain than he was already in.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Darcy chastised as she dropped another torn stitch onto the towel on the bed.

Maybe it was the tone in her voice, but Loki stopped squirming and fussing after that. With him sitting still, she was able to pull the stitches out more quickly, and she was surprised that he didn’t even flinch when she had to use the scissors to cut the ones that were still intact, or when they tugged because his skin had healed around them. While everything around the cut was red and kind of angry looking, he wasn’t actually bleeding, so the stitches probably needed to come out anyway.

When she finished, Darcy looked back up at the one over his ribs, which looked much more recent. She wasn’t sure if she should leave those in or not, until she looked up and saw Loki watching her expectantly.

“You want me to do that one too?” she asked, pointing at it.

Loki tried to say something, but again only wound up coughing violently. If he was going to do that every time he even tried to make a sound, it was no wonder he wanted the stitches on his chest out. It probably hurt like hell every time he coughed. Darcy waited for him to calm down again before she started cutting the stitches. She held onto the towel, ready to stem the inevitable bleeding, but the cut seemed to have already healed over enough that the stitches weren’t even necessary.

Loki watched her curiously as she cut the stitches and pulled them out, one by one. These ones were easier than those on the first cut, since he hadn’t really had the chance to heal around them just yet. She got them out quickly, making a mental note to sanitise both her tweezers and scissors in alcohol the first chance she got. When she was done, she put both down onto the towel and reached back into her lunch box for the packet of ELF cleansing cloths. She didn’t have many left, and wasn’t likely to be able to get more any time soon, but she figured this was a good cause.

“This might sting. I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled one from the little black packet. She carefully pressed the cloth against the cut on his chest, not even a little bit surprised when he hissed and squirmed away again.

“Ya big baby. I get this stuff in my eye all the time. Suck it up,” Darcy told him.

He sat still again, waiting patiently for her to finish cleaning the area without accidentally tearing everything open again. When she was done, Loki tilted his head toward the right and pulled his hair out of the way, making clear what he wanted her to do next. The cut on his head still looked very new, and Darcy wasn’t sure she should be doing anything with it just yet. But he clearly wanted the stitches out sooner rather than later. Probably, Darcy realised, because he knew that if they put it off until the morning, it might wind up being too difficult to remove them.

“Okay,” Darcy agreed. She nodded and got up, holding up her hand to tell Loki to stay put while she fetched a smaller hand towel from the bathroom. They were cheap Dollar Tree towels, but still. There weren’t even any Dollar Trees in Puente Antiguo to replace it if it got ruined. But it was the only thing she had that she was willing to ruin.

She stood by the bed, tapping Loki’s shoulder to get him to turn round so she could reach more easily. He sat quietly, still holding his hair out of the way for her, and she wasn’t really sure how to suggest that maybe they wait until morning, so she started cutting the stitches anyway. Just as she thought, the cut on his scalp was newer than the one on his chest, and it did start bleeding. Not as badly as it could have done, but she was glad she’d grabbed the hand towel.

“Other hand,” she said, reaching out for his free hand. She put the towel in his hand and pressed it where she needed it, leaving just enough room to still see what she was doing. To her relief, he stayed exactly where she put him through the whole thing, letting her pull out the stitches without having to worry about trying to hold his head together in the process.

When she finished, she moved his hand again to cover the whole cut with the towel, and tried to work out how to tell him to just hold it there for a while. Even if the cut did seem fairly recent, it wasn’t bleeding anywhere near as badly as she expected. With any luck, it would probably stop on its own before he fell asleep.

She wasn’t sure if it was the serious weirdness of playing doctor for an alien Space Viking, or just the heater, but she suddenly felt way too hot. The whole room was like a sauna, and she needed a little bit of space.

“Okay. All done, I guess,” she said as she stepped away. She reached into the bathroom to put the scissors and tweezers on the counter so she remembered to clean them later, and then quickly walked back to the heater to turn it off. While she tried to coax it into having a middle setting, Loki got back up from the bed and wandered into the bathroom again. Eventually, Darcy gave up on the heater and just turned it off completely. She found Loki inspecting the cut on his head in the mirror, and was content to leave him there for as long as he wanted. She was starving and more than a little freaked out, and still way behind on her homework. Not that she was going to get any reading done now, but she could at least hold one of the books in her hand and pretend to look at the pages.


	5. Chapter 5

Darcy waited until long after she was sure Loki had fallen asleep before even considering going to bed. After about a half hour looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, he finally put his borrowed shirt back on and sat back down on the bed to watch Darcy with a curiosity so intense, it made her want to scream. But she didn’t, and instead pretended that she hadn’t noticed him staring, and eventually — mercifully — he fell asleep. Darcy kept glancing over at him, each new thing he did only making her realise how stupid her plan was. She was half-tempted to sleep in the bathroom, with a door that locked, but the bath tub was too small for even her to fit comfortably, and somehow sleeping on the floor just seemed gross.

Around midnight, she finally decided she needed to get some sleep before dawn broke and brought with it the sort of harsh reality that only morning light could properly illuminate. She powered down her laptop and pulled some pyjamas out of the dresser and slipped into the bathroom to change. Her scissors and tweezers were still on the stained yellow counter top, but she tried not to look at them. Part of her wanted to just throw them away, like they were evidence to some terrible crime. But she needed those tweezers; not just for her eyebrows, but also because there was nothing sexy about those weird, dark hairs around her nipples. 

She steeled herself, taking deep breaths before shutting off the light and going back out to the main room. Loki was still asleep, sprawled out on his back like he owned the place, but still on what had quickly become his side of the bed.

Darcy needed to figure out what to do with him, and the sooner the better.

She carefully walked back round to her side and climbed under the covers, thankful that Loki had at least had the decency to fall asleep on top of them. It wasn’t much in the way of a barrier between them, but it was something. She put her glasses down on the night stand beside her and rolled over to put her back toward Loki, already knowing that she wouldn’t be getting much sleep at all. An unconscious psychopath was still a psychopath. For all she knew, he was just waiting for her to fall asleep so he could strangle her and steal her skin to wear it like a suit. And that wasn’t helping her sleep at all.

She wasn’t sure when she did manage to actually drift off, but the clock beside her said it was just a few minutes before two in the morning when she woke up again. The room was freezing, as it had been every night, because leaving the heater on only meant she woke up at two AM because the room felt like a sauna. Darcy tried to pull the blankets closer around her, but Loki’s weight on top of them made it impossible. The only way to get any warmer was to back away farther from the edge, and closer to Loki. 

Fuck that noise. She’d rather freeze.

Or so she thought. After nearly an hour of failing to fall back asleep because she was too busy shivering, she finally gave in and moved back toward the middle of the bed. She didn’t get quite close enough to actually come into any real contact with Loki, but it did mean she got more blankets. Not that she really felt any better for it. She was still cold, and now she was within perfect strangling distance.

She decided that rather than freezing or being strangled, she’d prefer to swelter. But just as she started to get up to turn the heater back on, Loki muttered something that sounded like ‘nay’ and rolled over, wrapping one arm tightly around Darcy. She went completely still, not sure what she should do. What if she argued? Would he get angry? Was he even awake? She didn’t even want to try to turn around to see. He started saying something else in complete gibberish, as far as Darcy could tell, but soon started coughing and hacking again. Thankfully, he let her go while he coughed his throat raw, and it was all Darcy needed. She flung herself out of the bed and sat down against the wall beneath the window, staring at Loki as he calmed down and went back to sleep. Huddled against the wall, Darcy buried her face in her hands and forced herself to be quiet; forced herself not to cry, if only because she didn’t want to wake Loki up and piss him off.

She knew she could still get out of this. She could tell them that Loki forced his way into her car. That he made her bring him here. And SHIELD would probably believe her, especially when Loki couldn’t refute that. But she knew she couldn’t — she wouldn’t. Not when SHIELD or SWORD or whatever were the reason he couldn’t refute her story in the first place. Not when she’d got curious enough to go surfing Wikipedia. That incision on his scalp, just above his ear; they weren’t messing around randomly. Thor was an alien from another planet, and he spoke perfect English. Loki was from the same planet, and he didn’t understand a damn word that was spoken to him, because some bastard with a medical degree they didn’t deserve had gone spelunking in Loki’s language centres. Whatever he had to say, they didn’t want anyone to hear it.

Giving him back to the people who had done that to him would only be a very long and painful death sentence. He deserved prison; not that. The best thing she could do would be to get through the next day, and take him back out to the desert under the cover of night and send him on his merry way. Maybe his own kind would find him and come pick him up and get him out of Earth’s hair, then.

Not sure what else to do, Darcy reached over and turned on the heater. Sitting as close as she was to it was uncomfortably warm almost immediately, but she couldn’t bring herself to move away. Everything ached, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to bed, but bed was the last place she wanted to be. She had made a terrible mistake, and now she had no idea how to fix it.

Darcy reached for her handbag and quietly as she could pulled her taser from it. She held it close to her as she curled up against the wall again, leaning in the uncomfortable corner where the air-conditioner stuck out from under the window. The warmth coming from it started to lull her back to sleep despite everything, her exhaustion winning over. She drifted in and out of sleep, slumped against the wall while Loki slept in her bed. 

She didn’t know how many times she woke up and fell back asleep over the night, but she was definitely asleep when a heavy pounding came from the door. Darcy jerked awake, looking at the door and waiting for someone to break it down. After a few moments, when no-one came bursting in, she looked back over at Loki, also awake and looking down at her in confusion.

“Shit,” Darcy whispered, carefully getting to her feet. It didn’t matter who it was; she needed to act fast. “Get down. Hide!” she hissed at Loki, waving him off the bed. 

He didn’t seem to need to be told twice, and was down on the floor in an instant. It wasn’t the best hiding place, but there weren’t a whole lot of other options. Darcy quickly pulled off her pyjama bottoms, glad she’d kept her panties on under them, and unlocked the door. She cracked it open, hiding as much behind it as she could, and peered out to find Clint standing outside, looking more keyed up than he had all week.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said. “Loki escaped from SWORD custody last night.”

“Shit,” Darcy hissed. Were they onto her?

Clint rubbed his face and pointed out toward the black SUV in the car park outside. “The good news is you get a ride into work today. Come on.”

“What, right now?” she asked. She glanced over at the clock, feeling like the Universe was out to get her when she saw it was about ten minutes to seven. “I don’t go in until about ten.”

“Yeah, well I go in at seven,” Clint said.

Darcy was not amused. If she was in trouble, Clint would have probably said something already, which meant she was just being pointlessly jerked around. Typical SHIELD.

“Dude, I’m like, pretty much naked. You woke me up,” she sad, shifting just far enough out from behind the door so he could see that she was, indeed, pretty much naked. “You gotta give me like, at least an hour to get ready. I’m a girl; we take a long time.”

“Thirty minutes,” Clint said, obviously not buying it for a second. “I’ll be in the car.”

He turned to walk back to his giant SUV. Darcy shut the door and leaned against it. She’d managed to buy herself half an hour to work out what to do. It wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d expected to get away with. She scrubbed her face with both hands, wondering just when her life had turned completely upside down. She almost wished she was back in Culver, dealing with giant green monsters instead of this.

When she looked back up again Loki was sitting up behind the bed, actually leering at her. Of course he was.

“Oh my god,” Darcy said, pulling her shirt down as low as she could. “No, you stop it right there. I don’t even…”

She didn’t know what she didn’t even, but it was something strong and acidic that sat high in her chest. She waved it all away as best she could and fetched up her taser from the floor and went to go dig some clean clothes from the dressed.

“Whatever, man. I have to shower. If I even think you’re trying to get through that door, I’m tasing you in the balls.” She took everything into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. The flimsy lock wouldn’t really keep anyone out, but it was that much more of a barrier between her and Loki. Getting undressed more than she already was, knowing he was just on the other side of the door, was more difficult than she expected it to be. She didn’t want to get undressed, but she needed to shower. She’d spent all night sweating next to the heater, and couldn’t put up a good front if she went into the lab smelling like an old gym bag. Finally, she undressed and stepped into the shower, focusing just on that and trying to ignore everything else. She tried to ignore the photos on her phone, and that constant look of incomprehension on Loki’s face. She tried to ignore the fact that Puente Antiguo was crawling with SHIELD agents, and what they would do to her if they found Loki in her hotel room. She tried to ignore the fact that he was just on the other side of the door, and she tried to ignore the question of whether he had actually been asleep when he grabbed her during the night.

She wasn’t really sure when she had started, but she soon found herself with her face buried in her hands, sobbing quietly. She had made a huge mistake, and there was no way out of it. She was trapped, and if SHIELD didn’t do something terrible to her, Loki would. All of that frustration and terror and helplessness came out in tears that were washed away by the hot water streaming down on her face. No evidence was left behind, but she hated herself for it all the same. This could have all been avoided if she had just listened to the number one piece of highway advice in the first place and not stopped to pick up a hitchhiker. It was all her fault, and she had no-one else to even conceivably blame.

But she also didn’t have time to waste on blaming herself. Clint would be back if she wasn’t out there soon enough, and she still had to figure out what to do with Loki while she was pretending to be a good little intern. She washed quickly, barely even worrying about her hair, and dressed just as quickly. By the time she was out, she felt almost in control of the situation, and still had fifteen minutes to spare. Loki was back up on the bed, and had apparently managed to turn off the heater before he picked up Darcy’s handbag and emptied out in front of him. He sat there, curiously examining a tampon, which he hadn’t managed to unwrap yet.

“Hey, no!” Darcy snapped, rushing forward to claim her belongings. She crammed everything into the bag, pulling the tampon from Loki’s hand. “Lady things. Not for you.”

Loki actually had the audacity to glare at her. Darcy almost had the audacity to smack him. She didn’t though, because she knew what would happen if she did. And she didn’t want to even start to go there.

“Okay, you’re bored. I get that,” she said. She put her handbag aside and exchanged it for the universal remote control she’d brought from home. “Look at this. You’ll like this. I promise.”

She made sure he was looking at what her fingers were doing and turned on the television. At the sudden noise from it, Loki jumped and glared at the television, and then back at Darcy. Ignoring it as best she could, she turned the television off and on again a few times, making sure he got the point.

“If you don’t like Telemundo, there are other things here. See?” Darcy said. She waved her fingers in front of his face to get his attention again and showed him how to flip through the eight channels available. After a few moments, Loki took the remote from her and tried it for himself, turning the television off and on a few times, and looking like he hadn’t the faintest clue what he was supposed to do about it.

“I have, uhm,” Darcy started. She looked around and finally found her giant DVD book. Most of her DVDs weren’t even proper DVDs, but just several .avi files burnt to the disk, in the event that her computer crashed and lost all her downloaded movies. God bless Philips and their DVD players that would read anything.

She pulled a random disk from the book and walked over to the player. Loki sat up and followed her as far as the foot of the bed, watching as she deliberately pressed the button that opened the tray and then dropped the DVD into place.

“You press this one here,” She said, turning round to point at the play button a few times. Loki looked up at her, and then down at the remote again and pressed the button to queue up whatever files were on the DVD. It was _Brave_ , apparently.

“You’ll probably like this one,” Darcy said. “It has a witch and a bear and a princess who doesn’t take any shit from anyone.”

That confused look was back on Loki’s face. Darcy thought she might be starting to get used to it. She glanced over to the clock and cursed Clint for only giving her a half hour. He’d be banging on the door again if she wasn’t out there soon, and she still had to finish getting ready. She grabbed up her make-up lunch box and took it back into the bathroom where it belonged. She hardly had any time to do much at all, but some quick eyeliner and bronze eye shadow gave the impression that she had at least spent her half-hour being somewhat stereotypically girly. She took her taser and stuffed it into her handbag with the rest of her things and grabbed her books and her glasses, setting it all on the foot of the bed so she could pull on her shoes.

“I’ll try to be back as soon as I can,” he said. She slid her glasses on and picked up her things before making her way to the door. Loki was on his feet in an instant and grabbed Darcy by the wrist so hard it hurt.

“Nay,” he said again, pulling her back. He tried to say something else, but started coughing again. Not as badly as last time, but it was enough to derail him.

“I have to go,” Darcy said, trying to pull away from him. “I—you’re hurting me. Let go!”

Loki didn’t let go, but he did loosen his grip on her, going from bone-crushing to just uncomfortable.

“I have to go,” Darcy insisted again. She pointed toward the door, and through it, at Clint waiting for her outside. “If I don’t go with him, he’ll come in here and then we’re both fucked.”

Loki stared at her for a long moment before turning his attention over her shoulder, looking in the direction of where Darcy had pointed. Finally, he nodded and released her, saying something that sounded like, “yow far.” Whatever that meant. She assumed it meant he wasn’t going to fight her on this.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going now. Get back, or he’ll see you.” She waved him off, waiting until he stepped away from the door and back toward the bed before she stepped outside. Clint was waiting in the SUV, looking around the immediate area. Darcy took her time locking the door, trying not to seem like she was taking her time. She just needed the time to calm down just that little bit. If she was lucky, Clint would think she was just nervous about everything, and not about the very specific problem currently watching Disney movies in her room.


	6. Chapter 6

Erik had originally only planned on being in New Mexico for three days, so of course he hadn’t made any arrangements at all. He’d brought his laptop, and like, one change of clothes, and that was it. He said he didn’t mind sleeping on the ratty old sofa that had migrated into the show room, but it was pretty clear from where Darcy was standing that he probably minded it a lot more than he let on. Up until Thor had showed up, Erik was the closest thing to a Viking Darcy had ever met. And the tiny little sofa really wasn’t meant to be slept on by huge Swedish guys.

The lab was almost scary quiet that early in the morning. Darcy tried to ignore Clint as he checked every nook and cranny with his fucking gun drawn, while he made Darcy stay in the kitchen. She sat at the table, watching out the window as other SHIELD agents crept around the street outside. And she knew exactly who they were looking for. She was so screwed. It wouldn’t take long for them to work their way down the road and find their intergalactic fugitive in her hotel room. Utterly, utterly screwed. She wondered if she should just tell Clint what was going on. Tell him that Loki had forced his way in. That she was too scared to try to fight him. 

Her train of thought was swiftly and violently derailed when Erik started shouting. Darcy jumped up to see what was going on, for a terrifying moment thinking that maybe Loki had managed to follow her without being seen. But it wasn’t Loki at all. It was Clint.

“What are you doing? Put that away, before someone gets hurt,” Erik said, backing away from Clint. He spotted Darcy and quickly walked over, putting himself between her and Clint.

“The only person I plan on hurting is the son of a bitch that blew up my Ramones CDs,” Clint said. He did holster his gun, at least.

“Who still listens to CDs?” Darcy asked.

“I do,” Clint said. He kept walking around like he expected Loki to jump out from any corner or shadow in the building. “Last time, I put an arrow in his chest. Next one’s going in his eye.”

Darcy was prepared to make a joke about Clint’s age, but it died before it ever reached her tongue. Suddenly, her mouth felt dry, and she decided that maybe she should sit down again.

“An arrow? Like, with a bow? When?” As soon as she said it, she realised she knew exactly when Clint had shot him. Right around the time Loki was handed over to SWORD, no doubt.

Clint looked at her over his shoulder, like he was trying to decide what he could tell her. “After he landed here. We weren’t sure who he was until he started shouting about being king of Narnia, or whatever.”

“Asgard?” asked Erik, but when he said it, it came out more like _Ossgard._ Darcy wasn’t sure if that was a Swedish thing or an Erik thing. “No, he shouldn’t be king. Who let that happen?”

He and Darcy looked at one another nervously, and Darcy was starting to wonder just what Thor had gone home to take care of. And just what sort of crazy she had sleeping in her bed.

Clint hardly seemed to notice any of it, though. “Yeah, whatever. Point is, Coulson’s ordered an embargo on all star parties until we catch up with this creep again. Any trips into town will be escorted.”

“Wait, seriously?” Darcy demanded. “You guys can’t keep track of one person, so you put the rest of us on house arrest?”

So much for her plan of dropping Loki off in the desert when no-one was looking.

Again, Clint didn’t look amused at all. “Listen. Right now, my job is to keep you guys alive, and out of the hands of alien nutjobs. And I’m gonna do it. It’s my job, because I’m good at it. And if that means I have to tie your ass to a chair, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Darcy leaned closer to Erik. Apparently sanity was not something that existed in her life any more.

“Hey, now. Listen,” Erik said, taking a step toward Clint. “We have rights. You can’t do this. Just because you’ve been able to push people around before doesn’t mean you’ve got the right to do it.”

Clint looked at them both for a long moment before stepping aside and making a wide gesture out toward the street, visible in the rising sun outside. The street that was slowly being cleaned up, but which still had giant gouges in the pavement. The street that was lined with half-collapsed buildings and a few remaining crushed cars. He didn’t even have to say anything to get his point across. The only reason they hadn’t been rushed out of town was because SHIELD had suddenly decided Jane’s work was important. When the giant robot came, the whole town evacuated, and half of the people never came back. Looking at all of the destroyed businesses out there, Darcy couldn’t blame them.

At least most of the houses were on the edge of town. At least the giant robot stayed on Main Street.

“Okay,” Darcy said quietly. “But can you please at least keep the gun put away? You’re kinda freaking me out.”

Clint shook his head incredulously. “All secure,” he said, holding his finger up to his ear. He went quiet as he listened to whatever was being said through his secret spy equipment and nodded. “Yeah, you’ll be hearing from me if there is.”

Darcy didn’t want to ask. She had a feeling she already knew. Instead, she picked up her bag and went back out to what had slowly become her work station, finding very little work left for her to do. Jane had said the weather should start to cooperate by February, and without being able to make regular trips out to the desert, there wasn’t a whole lot they could do from the lab. Even Darcy knew that.

“Hey, if there’s nothing for me to do, can I just go back to my hotel room?” Darcy asked eagerly.

“No,” Clint said.

“Of course.” In the rush, Darcy hadn’t even thought to grab her books, so she couldn’t even do her reading. She checked Tumblr instead. She scrolled through her dash, in turns reblogging and and adding to her queue pictures of mostly-naked guys, fluffy kittens, and cupcake recipes. It wasn’t doing much to calm her nerves though. She still couldn’t shake the feeling of Clint watching her as he stalked around the lab, or Erik glaring at Clint as he pretended to do some work of his own on his laptop. Darcy was just about to give up in despair when one of those probably-fake Amber Alerts came up on her dash. She was half-way to checking out Snopes when an idea hit her. It was a terribly stupid idea, and she wouldn’t even try with Clint hovering around, watching their every move, but it would be insurance, if nothing else.

She pulled her phone from her bag and brought up the photo album. She didn’t want to look at the pictures on there any more than she had to, and dropped them all into an email to herself. As soon as she sent the email, she locked the screen on her phone and went back to pretending to be interested in Tumblr, and not at all silently freaking out over everything she was doing.

“So, seriously. What am I supposed to do all day, then?” she asked.

“Same thing you always do,” Clint told her. "Same thing you're doing right now." He clearly wasn’t going to be any help. Darcy waited until his back was turned and stuck her tongue out at him and flipped him off.

“Darcy,” Erik scolded quietly. The grin he wasn’t quite managing to hide belied his tone.

“What? He barged in on me at like, seven in the morning. I didn’t get to grab my homework,” she said. She’d been so busy trying to teach her pet supervillain to stay, she hardly had time to think about anything else.

“Just. Just wait a little bit for things to calm down,” Erik said. He was just as on-edge as Darcy was, and she could tell. He watched Clint from over the top of his laptop screen like he was expecting a team of armed guards to storm in at any moment. Darcy wouldn’t have been surprised if they did.

Darcy ignored Clint as best she could, scrolling through her dash and checking to see when her lit assignment was due. She heard Erik muttering curses that didn’t sound English, and which were almost certainly directed at Clint, SHIELD, and the government in general. After about twenty minutes of the otherwise oppressive silence, with Darcy still not entirely certain she wasn’t going to be hauled off and arrested at any moment, she pulled her iPod from her handbag and tried to drown everything out with the Hush Sound. It almost worked, but not really.

—

Jane finally came in just before ten, her arrival heralded by a very loud one-sided argument.

“I don’t know what you think we’re doing here, but I can’t do field work from the lab. That’s the whole point of coming out here to do _field work._ ” 

She was escorted in by both Coulson and Sitwell, the former looking like he was only half-listening, and the latter looking like he wasn’t listening at all. Darcy wondered how many other scientists these guys had jerked around to have got so good at it.

“It’s for your own safety, Dr Foster,” Coulson said, his voice even and calm in that way that suggested he was about ten seconds from being done with the conversation.

“Hey, can you guys tell Rambo here to take a chill pill?” Darcy asked, jerking her thumb to Clint, who was still as pent up as ever.

Sitwell and Coulson both exchanged a glance that seemed to encompass an entire conversation in the span of about a second. They were clearly the guys SHIELD sent out specifically to jerk around scientists. 

“Seriously, we’re fine,” Jane insisted, letting herself be led back to the kitchen by Coulson, while Sitwell moseyed on over to Darcy’s work station.

“So. Loki,” Darcy said, going for casual and missing by a mile.

“Yeah. You all right?” Sitwell asked. He was a little bit better at personable than Coulson was, Darcy thought. And that went a long way.

“Not gonna lie. I’m kinda freaked out,” Darcy admitted. She wound her headphones back round her iPod and shoved the whole thing back into her bag.

“You’re doing better than Dr Foster,” Sitwell said. He didn’t seem to take anything seriously, which Darcy really liked about him. Sitwell seemed to think everything was funny. Maybe in another life, they could have been friends.

“Yeah, well. I’ll be honest, I only took this gig because it was supposed to be a relaxing three months away from campus bullshit. So not living up to my expectations.” Darcy had heard of internships from hell. They were practically a staple of any degree. But this was turning into hell on top of Armageddon. 

She leaned back in her seat, not even caring about the argument going on in the kitchen. It was the same thing she’d heard before, with Jane being pissed, and Coulson being stoic, and no-one getting anything done.

“At least you’re getting paid,” Sitwell said.

Darcy laughed, at first incredulously, and then almost hysterically. “No, I’m not,” she said, putting her head down on her desk. She wanted to cry. “I’m not even a month in, and I’m so sick of ramen and white rice. I just blew my last fifteen bucks on a pizza last night.” A pizza she didn’t even really get to enjoy, because the psychopath she’d invited into her room ate most of it.

She heard something tick against the desk by her ear, and when she looked up she found a plain blue credit card with her name on it.

“What’s this?” she asked, picking it up. “Are you guys paying me?” That would just be too good to be true. She was half-expecting Sitwell to take the card back.

“No,” he said. Of course. “Compensation. For the travel restrictions. The grocery store’s still open. And the pizza place. Anything else, you can get online like everyone else.”

“Fucking seriously?” Darcy still couldn’t believe it. She turned the card over in her fingers, looking at the fine print just to assure herself it was real.

“Three hundred dollars a month. It won’t let you go over, so don’t try.” Sitwell put a plain white envelope down on the desk next to her as well. When Darcy picked it up, she found a sheet of paper with all the relevant card information.

“Dude, you are my new favourite person ever.” She wasn’t even exaggerating. She didn’t have to. “Wait. You said ‘a month.’ Does that mean we’re stuck on house arrest for longer?”

Sitwell’s expression turned just the smallest bit more serious. “If it comes to that, yes. We’re hoping it doesn’t.”

There were so many things he wasn’t saying, and so many things he didn’t have to.

“You know, I like you, Sitwell,” Darcy said, bobbing her head. “You’re one of them, but you’re honest. I appreciate that. Especially right now.”

“You say that now,” Sitwell said. It tore at something in Darcy’s chest, that he had to ruin it like that. “But you should play poker with me. There’s good money in the tournaments.”

Darcy laughed. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t know if it was true or not, but she didn’t care. She needed to laugh, with everything else going on. Nothing about any of it was even remotely funny. 

“Hey, can you do me a really big favour?” she asked, dropping her voice down so Clint the Prison Guard wouldn’t hear her. “I’m pretty useless here today, and I have got a mountain of homework to get through. Can you give me a ride back to the hotel?”

Sitwell looked up toward the kitchen, where even Erik and Clint had gravitated toward. Jane wasn’t on the verge of shouting anymore, but Erik sounded like he was. Darcy definitely wouldn’t be getting any work done anyway, at this rate.

“Yeah, let’s go before the plates start getting thrown,” Sitwell said.

Darcy quickly gathered her things and closed out the browser on the computer and followed Sitwell out to the giant black SUV parked just outside. It was such a waste of gas and healthy air to drive it three blocks, but Darcy was done arguing the point already. If SHIELD were going to pay her $300 to do mostly nothing, she could overlook pointless rides to and from the lab.

She got into the front seat, feeling strangely tall once she was settled. She looked around, surprised at some of the things she could see from where she was sitting.

“You could totally see into other peoples’ cars from here,” she observed as Sitwell climbed into the driver’s seat.

He flashed her an almost wicked grin. “Why do you think we like these so much?” he asked.

Darcy didn’t know if he was joking or not, and wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Oh my god, you are all such creeps,” she said.

Sitwell just laughed and started the engine. The drive three streets over was so quick, Darcy didn’t even have the chance to start a conversation. It was the most pointless ride ever, but Darcy couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Sitwell was going to see her to her door.

“You need anything else?” he asked as Darcy opened the car door to get out.

“Nope. I am good.” She wasn’t. Not even close, but she seemed to be faking it well enough that Sitwell didn’t notice. Everyone was probably freaked, and for a moment, Darcy wondered if the whole town was on lockdown, or just the Science Club.

Before she was able to get out of the car completely, Sitwell handed her a business card. “If you need to go somewhere. Call, and we’ll send an escort,” he explained.

“You make it sound so kinky,” Darcy said. She shimmied down onto the pavement, leaving Sitwell to laugh on his own. Darcy was exhausted, and being this close to her hotel only brought it all to the forefront. Maybe if she was lucky, she could lock herself in the bathroom and sneak a nap in.

She let herself into her room, opening the door slowly in case she was about to find something unpleasant waiting for her on the other side. The only thing she found was Loki passed out on the bed, with her box of cocoa puffs beside him, opened and probably empty. The DVD had gone back to the menu screen, but there was no telling when he’d fallen asleep. 

As Darcy turned to lock the door, she noticed the curtains were wide open. A rush of panic shot up her spine as she rushed to snap them shut, tugging awkwardly and swearing at the way everything caught and didn’t quite close as smoothly as it could have done. It woke Loki, and he was on his feet in an instant, nay-naying at her again. He took the curtains from her and opened them, talking to her in his weird almost-Russian-but-not-really sounding gibberish again.

“Seow,” he said, pointing up toward the window.

Darcy looked to see where he was pointing, finding weird copper-coloured smudges all along the edge of the glass, on all four sides.

“What is that?” she asked. She looked at Loki and noticed the rag he had wrapped around his left hand. His hands had been perfectly fine when she’d left him.

“Oh my god, is that blood?” she asked. She covered her mouth, thinking she was going to be sick. “Oh, that is so gross. Why would you even?”

Loki frowned, like she’d insulted some great work of art he’d been hitherto proud of. He shook his head and started talking again, a bit more slowly this time. But it still didn’t sound like anything Darcy recognised. Loki turned and pointed out the window and then waved his hand. When nothing terrible happened, he shrugged, as if whatever he’d done should have been obvious.

Darcy shook her head. “I don’t get it,” she told him.

Loki frowned. He looked like he was trying to find words she might understand, but after a few moments of not finding them, he waved his hand in the clearest “fuck it” gestures Darcy had ever seen and returned to the bed. He looked defeated and pissed, which was a frankly scary look on him. Even in pyjamas. Darcy tried to ignore it and looked out the window again. And then she saw what Loki had been pointing at. They were well-hidden, but she caught one of them moving — a dark shadow on the roof across the street. SHIELD were spying on her. Of course they were.

And apparently seeing nothing. Darcy peered out the window, trying to focus on the spies as best she could. Then she looked back at Loki, who had been so confident he was safe that he fell asleep with the curtains wide open.

“How the hell did you do that?” Darcy asked.

Loki looked up at her, and then held up his rag-bandaged hand. Right.

“I don’t get it, but it’s gross,” Darcy said. “Please don’t do it to anything else.”

She picked up her laptop and powered it on as she made her way back to the bed. Again, Loki was watching her every move, but at this point, she felt like she was starting to get used to being someone’s closely-watched science experiment. Ignoring Loki was almost like ignoring Clint.

At least Loki didn’t have a goddamn gun on him.

Darcy pulled up her email and downloaded the photos she’d taken the night before. Loki scowled at them, but he didn’t look away. Shooting a glance over to him, Darcy noticed he actually looked a lot better than he had the night before. Most of the really nasty cuts and bruises around his face and neck were completely healed over. Darcy tried to remember if he’d looked like that when she left, but she’d been too busy freaking out to notice. But from where she was sitting now, the only real hint that anything was wrong at all was the patch of missing hair from the side of his head. 

“Hey, can I…?”

She reached out, not really able to stop herself, and turned Loki’s head so she could pull his hair back on his left side. The deep gash that had been there the night before was little more than a long, thin cut. Like a deep cat scratch, more than anything.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s looking really good.”

Loki turned his head, making it clear that he was done letting her touch him. His expression had soured and he leaned back a bit, putting some more distance between them. Darcy wasn’t going to argue.

Instead, she pulled up Tumblr and put the pictures into a photo post, accompanying it with her account of events. She left out the part about the giant robot, but admitting that Loki was wanted by the police, and that the reason she wasn’t handing him in was because the damage done to him in the photos had been done by the police. 

In the end, the post was about a mile long. It was exactly the sort of thing Tumblr would circulate like wildfire.

But rather than posting it right away, and tipping her hand, she dated it for five o’clock the next day. Either she’d be around to change the date forward by another day, or she wouldn’t and she’d give SHIELD something huge to try to sweep under the rug.

She wasn’t really sure which one scared her more.


	7. Chapter 7

Loki was watching her again. Darcy tried to ignore him as she pretended to be doing nothing hilariously illegal and dangerous and stupid. She was just any normal college student slacking on her internship and homework. Nothing at all unusual here. Nope.

But he was watching her, and not looking away. And not like he’d been watching her, either. There was a sharpness to him that wasn’t there before. It wasn’t that lost confusion she was getting used to seeing on him. It was curiosity. Curiosity and the expectation of an explanation. Because he apparently hadn’t realised yet that she couldn’t understand a single word he said. 

Darcy managed to ignore him for about five seconds more before feeling like she was going to go a little insane from him watching her.

“It’s the internet,” she said, feeling stupid for trying to explain it to him, but not really sure what else to do. “Theoretically, it’s a useful tool for sharing ideas and information, but really you just use it to get into trouble one way or another.”

That confused look was back. Great. At least this was familiar territory. 

“Trouble with your mom because your horrible ex posts your naked pictures all over Facebook, or trouble with your job because your boss finds your blog post about how trashed you got over the weekend and how hungover you were on your shift on Monday. Trouble with the government because you admit to harbouring a dangerous criminal in your hotel room.”

Loki glared at her, or maybe at her computer. Darcy wasn’t sure which it was, but she didn’t like it. It reminded her just how dangerous Loki was. There was nothing benign about him in that moment. Even if it wasn’t open rage, it was still the sort of look someone gave you right before they ground your face into the pavement. Just like the giant robot ground Thor into the pavement. If that thing had a proper face, it would have glared at Thor like Loki was glaring at her.

Darcy looked away quickly, hunching into herself and trying to block her peripheral vision with her shoulder. When she dared to peek back again, Loki was already occupied with digging the last of the Cocoa Puffs from the box. Darcy hadn’t even opened that box yet, and now Loki had eaten them all. That just figured. Watching Loki out of the corner of her eye, Darcy began to wonder what else he’d got into or messed up in the few hours she was gone.

“I should be pretty PO’ed about that,” Darcy said with a sigh. “You’re lucky SHIELD paid me today. I’ll have to max out my limit before I’m arrested and thrown in jail forever, I guess.”

Loki looked up at her again, this time more slowly. He shifted, like he was tempted to move away from her, but some pull of manly dignity prevented him from actually moving.

“Yeah, I ain’t even sorry,” Darcy said, finding her ire manifesting in a strange sort of courage. “Your candy ass showing up here means everything is so fucked up that I need to be driven three blocks to work. Three blocks in those big, stupid SUVs. I thought that tree-hugger phase of mine a few years ago was just temporary, but I’m seriously about to have a love-in or something after that.”

Loki watched her cautiously for a long moment, and for a moment Darcy actually expected him to get up and walk away if, for nothing else, to get away from the all the confusion she was creating. And if it was deliberate confusion, well. Darcy felt like she deserved to jerk someone around, with everyone else doing the same to her.

“What?” Loki asked finally.

Darcy jumped so hard she nearly fell off the bed. “Holy shit, you speak English!” she said.

Loki looked just as surprised as she felt. He started saying something else, but when it wasn’t anything like English, the surprise was replaced by that same annoyed look he’d worn earlier.

“I guess not,” Darcy said. It must have just been a fluke. “Hey, wait a minute. When did you start understanding me?”

Loki looked like he was going to answer that, but shrugged and shook his head instead. 

Darcy was positive he hadn’t understood a word that was said to him the night before. He’d just stared blankly at everything, until food was introduced. That was about when he started to get a bit more responsive, at least. But even that morning, Darcy realised she’d been able to reason with him, and even sort of managed to communicate back and forth. He let her go into the lab. He must have understood some of what she’d said to him, then.

“Hey, can you write?” Darcy asked.

Loki’s face lit up and he said, “yow,” which Darcy was pretty sure meant yes in Space Viking. She put her laptop aside and got up to fetch her book bag from where it lived by the door. Hoping like hell this would work, she brought it up to the bed and dug out a notebook and a pen and handed both to Loki.

“Here, maybe we can do it this way,” she suggested hopefully.

Loki nodded and started to write, but stopped after the first few letters. “Ah,” he said, sounding weirdly defeated. Looking over at the page, Darcy saw why.

“That’s not English,” she said flatly. 

It would just figure that Space Vikings wrote with runes. Loki tossed the notebook aside and rolled his eyes as he said something else. Whatever it was, he sounded pretty certain.

“That’s what they did to you, wasn’t it?” Darcy asked uneasily.

Loki looked back at her, as if to warn her against this line of enquiry.

“I looked it up. After you fell asleep,” she said, ready to jump away if she needed to. She wasn’t even sure why she was still talking, but it felt like something she needed to say. “Where they cut you on your…” She motioned up toward her own head, but couldn’t actually bring herself to say the words. “That’s where the language centres are. On a human. And you guys look like us, so you’re probably the same on the inside.”

Loki laughed, high-pitched and without mirth. It was more a sound of desperate incredulity than anything, but Darcy couldn’t really understand why. She thought she was starting to get things pretty figured out, but maybe she was just as clueless about it all now as she was when Thor first fell out of the sky.

Loki looked down at his hands, turning them over as if examining them. He pulled off the rag from where he’d wrapped it around his left hand, revealing a half-healed slice across his palm. That had definitely not been there that morning, and was far more healed than it should have been for only being a few hours old. Watching him examine himself, Darcy noticed that his wrists had completely healed as well. There wasn’t a trace of any of the mess the handcuffs had left behind. 

“Holy shit, no wonder the Vikings thought you guys were gods,” Darcy mused aloud. She almost wanted to reach out and touch him, just to be sure, but she didn’t dare. “I’m almost ready to believe it myself.”

Loki looked up at her again, the ghost of a devilish little smirk on the corners of his mouth.

“Almost,” Darcy said firmly. “I’m still not sold.”

Loki shrugged. He started talking to her slowly, like he was picking his words with care. About one in every ten or so was in English, or sounded like it was in English, but only ever very small words. It wasn’t anything substantial enough for Darcy to even glean the greater context of what he was saying, but she listened quietly. If nothing else, she didn’t want to risk pissing him off by interrupting him. When he spoke slowly, the language didn’t sound quite so Russian anymore. But it was a lot of rolled R’s, and weird noises in the back of the throat. It was almost kind of pretty.

When he finished, he gave Darcy the sort of smile that suggested he’d just played a terribly mean joke on her, but wasn’t going to tell her what it was.

“Fuck, that wasn’t just some sort of magic spell or something, was it?” Darcy asked, starting to back away from him again.

Still smiling, Loki shook his head. “No.”

Darcy was not amused. “You’re an asshole, you know that? I don’t know what you just said, but if it was some magic spell for something, I’m tasing you in the balls.”

Loki only shrugged, still smiling.

“Well, asshole. Listen. I could get into a lot of trouble because of you,” Darcy said. She looked over her shoulder, still not trusting the open window.

“The plan was to drop your annoying ass out in the desert tonight.” She turned back to him, trying not to let her complete despair at that plan falling through show on her face.

Loki didn’t say anything in return. The way he raised his eyebrows said everything he needed to.

“Yeah. That’s your fault. Remember what I said about having to get a ride into the lab?” Darcy asked. She turned to point out the window at the not-so-theoretical agents ostensibly perched outside for her safety. “This place is crawling in government spooks because you—” she pointed at Loki, wanting to poke him in the chest, but not quite having the nerve “—blew up half the town.” She waved her hand at the window, which gave a nice view of the giant robot’s destruction path. “And now you’re back! And they’re worried you’re back to finish what you started and kill us all.”

Loki shook his head. “No,” he said. And then he said something else that didn’t sound like anything, but by the tone and inflection might have been “not _you_.” If it was what he said, Darcy didn’t want to even think about why she might have been exempt from Loki’s next murderous rampage.

“Please don’t kill anybody,” Darcy said, a bit more quietly than she’d meant to. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to bring you here and help you. I didn’t want to. I still don’t want you here. When I pulled over, I thought you were just some guy, and then I saw…” she waved her hand in Loki’s general direction. “I saw everything, and kinda freaked out. What they did was fucked up, but so was what you did. But that doesn’t make any of it right. I shouldn’t have helped you, and now I can’t take it back. But I can’t roll on you either, because you’ll just go right back there, and they’ll probably be even worse.”

She pushed her glasses up onto her forehead and tried to dry her eyes with the heels of her hands. She wouldn’t start crying in front of him. She couldn’t. If she did that, she’d never be able to look him in the eye again. He’d know how terrified of him she was, and that was the last thing she needed. When she finally looked back up, Loki was watching her again, all cold consideration as he studied her with his arms crossed over his chest. He started talking again, the same even, measured tone as before. Darcy really wished she could understand what he was saying, because it sounded important.

He stopped suddenly, as if realising something mid-sentence. Darcy was tempted to remind him that she couldn’t understand a word he said, but he started talking again. This time, a question by the sound of it.

Darcy shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t speak Space Viking,” she said. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Loki frowned. Several times, he looked like he was about to say something, but thought better of it at the last second. Finally, he tapped himself on the chest. “Loki,” he said, before motioning expectantly to Darcy.

“Oh. Uh, Darcy,” she said. It took her a few moments to notice the expectant look Loki still wore. “Darcy Lewis.” She wasn’t sure if she should have told him that. She’d seen enough fantasy movies to know that names held power, and that telling Loki her name was probably the dumbest thing she’d done yet.

“Darcy Lewis,” Loki repeated. Then he spoke again, reaching out toward her. Darcy closed her eyes and tensed, trying to look away. But all Loki did was straighten her glasses on her face before pulling his hand back. 

Looking at him sitting cross-legged on the other side of the bed, with that less-than-innocent smile on his face, Darcy just knew that telling him her name had been yet another in a very long line of mistakes.


	8. Chapter 8

Darcy kept looking out the window, paying more attention to what was going on outside it than what was going on in her book. Neither Victorian sexual repression nor Mormon sexual ignorance was able to hold her attention for more than a few seconds at a time. She’d given her laptop to Loki, because he seemed curious, and keeping him entertained and happy seemed beneficial to her health. It had taken him all of two minutes to somehow find Tumblr’s porn tags. Either he was very lucky with random clicking, or the bastard could read English.

Whichever it was, Darcy ignored it for the most part. He was being quiet and not staring at her, so as long as he kept his hands out of his pants, she was happy to let him do whatever the hell he wanted. Both his hands were busy anyway. He’d got the hang of using the laptop’s track pad pretty easily, and used his right hand to scroll, while he kept snapping his fingers with his left. At first, Darcy thought he was trying to get her attention for something, but he kept doing it, again and again, with no rhythm or pattern. He was probably nervous. Somehow, knowing he was out of his own element and in way over his head made him a little easier to be around.

The people outside were a different matter entirely. They weren’t even doing anything really. But just their presence — knowing they were out there, probably trying to watch what she was doing made it impossible to do anything. She couldn’t think. She could even pretend to be doing her homework.

“Are you sure they can’t see us?” Darcy asked. The answer seemed obvious, but obvious hardly meant anything. Especially lately.

Loki stopped snapping his fingers and looked up, turning to glance out the window. “They can’t,” he said easily. His English was slowly but steadily getting better, like the more he used it, the more it seemed to sink in.

Darcy looked out the window as well, leaning forward and craning about to try to see what she could of the people on the roof across the street. “Can they hear us? What if they’re listening in?”

“They can’t.” He looked down at his hand and snapped his fingers some more, like he was expecting something to happen.

He and Thor were royalty, apparently. Maybe that’s how they summoned servants or food or whatever they needed. Just thinking about that made Darcy remember her pathetic dinner and lack of any real breakfast.

“I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” she asked.

“I could eat,” he said, not even looking up from the post after post of guy-on-guy blowjobs he was scrolling through.

Darcy set her book aside and got up to dig through the boxes of cheap, over-processed food she’d brought with her. Some macaroni, ramen, rice. The mini-fridge wasn’t much better. Just a few cans of Pepsi, half a gallon of milk, and some left-overs from Izzy’s which were starting to become seriously questionable.

“I don’t have much,” Darcy told him. She did, however, have $300 from SHIELD. “I can try to go shopping. They should let me do that.”

Loki looked up at her, looking like he was trying to pick his words with care. “What was that you had brought in last night?” As long as he used small words, he didn’t seem to code-switch very much. The fact that he was speaking at all was a goddamed miracle in Darcy’s opinion, though.

“Pizza’s expensive and I’m broke. I can’t afford it every night,” she told him. Loki frowned, like her answer was not what he wanted to hear.

“Let me go shopping,” Darcy said, trying not to sound like she was begging. She got up and went to fetch her handbag. “Sitwell said the store is still open, and it’s just right up on the next corner. I can get a lot with the money they gave me.”

Loki stared at her, his suspicion plain on his face. Maybe she was projecting, but Darcy thought he looked scared. If he was, she couldn’t really blame him. 

“If I go to the store, I can get a lot more stuff for the same amount of money. I don’t get paid, so when I do have money, I have to make it all count.” She pulled her phone and the card Sitwell had given her from her bag, but didn’t dial the number yet. She wanted to make sure he agreed with the plan before she did anything, in case his disagreement turned violent.

“You’re a slave?” Loki asked her.

Darcy snorted. “Yeah, pretty much. It’s legal because they’re ‘paying me with experience,’” she said, making air-quote around the bullshit part of that sentence. “SHIELD gave me three hundred bucks, man. That’s enough to feed a family of four for about a month. If they eat cheaply.”

Loki narrowed his eyes at her, but said nothing. Darcy wondered if he said nothing because he knew anything he wanted to say would just come out in Space Viking.

“Just let me call Sitwell and see if I can get out of having to be escorted to the store,” she said. “I’ll be gone like, twenty minutes. Okay?” She held up Sitwell’s card in one hand and her phone in the other, still waiting for him to agree to it.

After a long moment of staring at her with his face completely unreadable, Loki finally nodded. He didn’t seem happy about it, but Darcy ignored that and dialled Sitwell’s number, surprised when he picked up almost immediately.

“Hey, Sitwell, buddy,” Darcy greeted as she turned away from Loki so she didn’t have to see him glaring at her. “I need to go shopping, and the store’s like, right there. I can almost see it from my window. Do I really need to have someone drive me there?”

“It’s for your safety, Miss Lewis,” Sitwell said.

Darcy expected as much from him.

“What about the guys across the street? The ones watching me from the roof? Are they for my safety too?” she asked.

Sitwell didn’t respond right away, but she was pretty sure she heard him pull the phone away from his ear and make an annoyed sound. 

“Seriously, dude. This place is crawling with Men in Black, and I’ve got enough carbon guilt as it is. I still can’t believe I had to ride in with Clint this morning. Which, between you and me, that guy could use a vacation.” She turned around, unable to really stop herself from grinning at the look of utter perplexion on Loki’s face.

On the other end of the line, Sitwell sighed. “Just to the store?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m like, totally sick of ramen, and I’ve got all this SHIELD money burning a hole in my pocket,” Darcy said, starting to feel like this might actually work.

“Make it quick,” Sitwell told her.

Darcy grinned even wider. “Thanks, dude. I’ll get you a candy bar or something.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sitwell told her, just before the line went dead. Darcy wiggled in a little victory dace as she put her phone and the card back in her bag.

“Mission accomplished,” she told Loki. 

Loki started to ask a question, but he didn’t get any further than “Are you” before English failed him. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, Darcy waiting patiently for him to start again.

“Are you like this with all of your masters?” he asked finally.

Darcy laughed as she picked up the big canvas bag that held her knitting and dumped it out on the bed. “No, what are you talking about?” she asked. 

Loki rolled his eyes so hard, it looked like it hurt.

“Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise,” Darcy told him. She didn’t wait for Loki to give her his leave, or whatever it was royalty did. She left the room as quickly as she could without being suspicious. Once the door was locked behind her, Darcy waved up to the guys on the roof, just to annoy them. She walked up the road to the tiny grocery store on the next corner, definitely feeling like this was a completely different town to the one she’d first arrived in at the beginning of term. It had never been a terribly loud, busy place to begin with, but it was starting to get that ghost town vibe. Even places that weren’t damaged by the giant robot were starting to close down. But the pizza place was still open. Darcy stopped as she came up next to it and sighed to herself. Maybe she could buy her prolonged survival through delicious, garlicy crust. After all, they did say the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Maybe the same held true for the way to whatever it was that made someone not want to kill you when you stopped being useful.

—

Darcy ran out of space in her bag before she even came close to maxing out her card limit, which she took as a good sign. A small good sign, but she needed anything good she could get. 

$50 bought a lot of sandwich meats, bread, tinned soups, and pasta. There was even a tiny “deli counter” with a few ready-made sandwiches and some cooked chicken, which seemed like a good idea. She wasn’t sure how long it would last, and wasn’t counting on it sticking around for very long. Thor had been a bottomless pit, and she had no reason to expect Loki to be any different.

On her way back, she picked up the pizza she’d ordered — topped with a little bit of everything — and made very quick tracks back to her room. 

“Hey, it’s me,” she said as she walked into the room. 

Loki made no move to get up and help her, but he did at least seem happy to see her. Or at least, what she was carrying.

“I thought you said—”

“Yeah, well. You seemed so heart-broken over it, I changed my mind,” she said. She put the pizza down on the bed in front of him so she could empty out her bag. “And leave me more than one piece this time.”

Loki was already getting into the pizza, giving it a dubious look. “This one’s different,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s also more expensive, so be nice to me,” Darcy told him, not looking up from where she was filling her fridge. She brought the chicken over to the bed, hoping to use it to tempt Loki away from the pizza so she could get to it while it was still hot. It worked, seeming to distract him immediately.

“What have you done to it?” he asked, picking up the crispy-fried drumstick and examining it like it might spring out and bite him.

“I didn’t do anything to it. It’s delicious. Just eat.” Darcy turned the pizza box around so she could use the inside of the lid as a table, putting a few slices of pizza and some of the chicken on it for herself. 

“I will not be told what to do by a slave,” Loki said, picking the breading from the chicken and sniffing at it.

Darcy snorted and swallowed her pizza quickly. “Yeah, well. This is my room, and if you don’t like it, you can walk.”

Loki gave her a sideways glare and put the bit of torn-off chicken into his mouth. He apparently decided he liked it after that, and started eating with more zeal. Darcy watched him for a few moments, still managing to be amazed at how much Asgardians could put away, before her attention drifted back out the window.

“So why’d you do it?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Loki slowly looked over at her. “Do what?” he asked, but it was clear by the look on his face that he knew exactly what Darcy meant.

“Bring your giant robot down here. Blow up the town. Try to kill everyone. Take your pick.” The bitterness and resentment poured out of her suddenly. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, trying to interrogate Loki, but she didn’t really care. She needed to know.

Loki’s gaze slowly shifted out the window as well, like he was seeing what was out there for the first time. Darcy thought she could see a flash of genuine guilt flash over his face, but if that’s what it had been, it was replaced by anger. Not an immediate anger, but a distant one, like he was thinking of something that had pissed him off.

“The price for treason is death,” Loki said. His voice was hard and menacing, and Darcy couldn’t help but shift away from him. “Thor was banished here for crimes against Asgard and Jotunheim. I sent the Destroyer to end a conspiracy against the throne. Had Thor’s friends not disobeyed a direct command, none of this would have happened.”

The giant robot on steroids would be called the Destroyer. Of course it would be. What else could it have possibly been called? Darcy almost wanted to laugh. Or maybe cry. She wasn’t sure.

“I guess that didn’t work out so well,” she muttered, trying to bury her words in her pizza. It also didn’t work so well, going by the glare on Loki’s face.

“I was betrayed,” he spat out. “Overthrown and cast out.” He wasn’t even looking at her any more. His glare was fixed toward the window, at some point beyond out on the road. It might have all been a lie, but it didn’t seem like it. He seemed legitimately pissed off. But then again, taking everything the so-called God of Lies said as face value seemed like a really dumb thing to do.

“You hurt some people. No-one died, thankfully. We saw the thing coming and were able to evacuate. But it still hurt people. And broke a lot of things. They’re calling you a terrorist.” Loki hardly seemed to hear what she said, but she didn’t care. He was stuck here just as much as she was, and maybe she could use that to make him listen. “You deserve to be in jail for what you did, I think,” she went on. And Loki did look at her then, focusing all that anger and rage at her. It made her want to disappear into the floor, being under the weight of that stare.

“But you won’t go to jail if they find you again,” she said, trying to gather her nerves back. He didn’t seem to be getting any calmer, which wasn’t helping. “What they already did to you… We have a big problem with that right now. You’re not human, so. So human rights don’t apply. If they find you again, they’ll cut you open and grow bits of you in jars, and justify it because you’re dangerous. Because they can prove you’re not human, so they don’t have to play by all the rules.”

Loki shifted his attention back out the window, and Darcy could see his eyes tracking something. Probably the agents across the street. His expression slowly softened to what Darcy was pretty sure was heavily-masked fear. Like he was trying to keep himself as neutral as possible.

“What do you hope to gain by aiding me?” he asked finally.

Darcy considered telling him that she was hoping he wouldn’t kill her; that he’d feel so honour-bound to let her live because she helped him. But she didn’t. He might kill her just to be contrary.

“Nothing, I guess,” she said. “But what they want to do with you isn’t right. That’s why I’m studying politics — so I can maybe change things. There was a case a few years ago — all over the news. These cops beat the shit out of this kid, and got away with it because the kid was a mutant. The judge actually said that the kid was potentially dangerous and that the cops had used justifiable force. He was fourteen years old, and he’d supposedly stolen a soda from a convenience store. Even if he actually had, that shit’s fucked up. It’s getting better, but we’ve still got a long way to go.”

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Their lunch sat forgotten in front of them as they both looked out the window. Puente Antiguo was so quiet and still, even in the middle of the afternoon. What little activity was going on in town was either the few residents who were left packing up to leave, or SHIELD hanging around to make sure no pissed off Norse maybe-gods came down and tried to kill anyone.

“You did this,” Darcy said finally. “Jane’s gonna stick around until the end of the term, or SHIELD makes her leave. Whichever comes first. The town’s so fucked up that no-one can see the point in rebuilding. If I get caught helping you, I’m gonna go to jail forever. I won’t even be a martyr for the cause, because SHIELD will cover it up and no-one will know what happened.” She looked over at Loki, her out-pouring bringing with it the courage to say even more than she’d ever planned.

“I just want you gone,” she told him flatly. “I want you far away from here, where no-one will ever see you or connect you to me.”

Loki looked down at his hands and snapped his fingers a few times. “I can’t,” he said. “I am unwelcome on Asgard, and cannot travel to the other realms from here.”

Darcy watched him; watched him snap his fingers and turn his hands over to examine them. “Why not?”

Loki smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was all rueful and sad. “I can’t even make sparks. I have lost everything.”

He snapped his fingers a few more times and gave up with a shrug. When Thor was there, he talked about his mortal body, like it wasn’t his own. And then there was the magic lightning and that hammer, and he could do things most mutants couldn’t even do. It was almost like…

“Shit, they gave you the cure, didn’t they?” Darcy realised. Loki didn’t seem to know what she was talking about, but she remembered seeing that puncture wound on his neck. It was gone now, but it had definitely been there the night before. “It… It takes away everything that makes mutants special. It makes them human.”

Loki sat quietly for a few moments before very calmly getting up. He walked into the bathroom and not-so-calmly slammed the door behind himself. Darcy listened for the sounds of destruction, but nothing came. Just silence. 

She looked down at their college student lunch and decided to start putting everything away. Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry.


	9. Chapter 9

Her knitting had already been spread out over the bed, so the decision to ignore everything else and work on that came easily. All she’d brought with her from home was her scrap project — dozens of ugly garter-stitched squares in whatever colour she plucked out from the mess, to eventually be sewn together into an ugly mess of a blanket. But even that, she couldn’t focus on for more than a few seconds at a time. SHIELD were spying on her from every angle, Loki had locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out, and she was still behind on her reading. Not even her distracting procrastination could distract her from everything. She was half starting to wish that SHIELD would just get it over with and arrest her already so she could stop freaking out about what would happen when they finally busted her door in.

After getting through ten stitches in about an hour, Darcy gave up on her knitting as well. She tossed it down to the mess of yarn tangled at the foot of the bed and got to her feet. The curtains were still wide open, showing no changes at all outside. Darcy looked out at the street, trying to ignore the big, burnt gouge running down the length of the pavement and the hollowed-out remains of Izzy’s diner. In her effort to ignore as much as she could, her eyes eventually slid over the smudges on the edge of the window. Now that she was actually looking at them, they weren’t random smudges at all, but writing. Runes, written in blood, and now dried to a sickening rust colour. She could see fingerprints in the writing, like he’d sliced his hand open and finger-painted with the result.

Ew.

It must have hurt, though. She’d seen the cut on his hand, a long line across his entire palm. Darcy wasn’t even sure what he’d used to cut himself open like that, but she also wasn’t so curious that she felt a burning need to go looking. She began to wander aimlessly around the small room, looking for anything to occupy herself. None of her DVDs looked interesting, and even though the room was starting to become a bit cluttered and crowded, she wasn’t really in the mood to clean any of it up. She quickly found herself standing by the bathroom door, looking at the small sliver of yellow light that shone through the gaps along the edges.

“Hey,” she called out, tapping on the door with her fingers. “You okay in there?”

Loki didn’t respond. Darcy leaned closer to the door, trying to see if she could hear anything. But it was completely silent on the other side. She wondered if she should let herself in, but it was a fleeting thought. Who knew what she’d find on the other side. Or what sort of mood she’d find Loki in. It obviously wasn’t going to be a good one, either way.

“Do you need anything?” she asked.

She was still met by silence. The thought crept into her mind that maybe he wasn’t all right on the other side of the door, and Darcy had no idea how to deal with that possibility. What if he’d hurt himself in there? Deliberately? What if he still had whatever he’d used to slice his hand open?

“Say something. Please,” Darcy said. Loki said nothing. “If you don’t say something to let me know you’re in one piece, I’m coming in.”

“Leave me be,” Loki said stiffly.

Darcy couldn’t believe how relieved she was to hear him say anything at all. He sounded like he was right up next to the door, so even if she did try to get in, she’d have to push him out of the way. 

“Do you want to watch a movie?” she asked, not particularly hopeful.

“No,” Loki said. Darcy had sort of expected as much.

“All right. Well. I reserve the right to kick you out when I have to pee.” She wasn’t sure why she was trying to draw him out in the first place, but it wasn’t working anyway. Loki didn’t even respond to her this time, giving a pretty clear signal that he was staying put. Darcy left him there and went back to the bed. Maybe if she was lucky, something else would fall out of the sky and distract SHIELD. Or maybe just crush the hotel. Either one would probably solve all her problems.

But nothing fell from the sky, and all her problems still remained, so Darcy turned on the television and started flipping through the eight channels again and again until she got bored enough to leave it in one place. The PBS show on painting and decorating wasn’t going to solve her problems either, but it was at least background noise. Something to drown out the paranoid buzz in her mind.

She got through two painfully slow rows on her square, at one point having to turn on the light. By the time Loki finally wandered out of the bathroom and sat down on the floor, the sun had gone down behind the mountains completely. Darcy expected him to be a mess, all red-eyed and sticky from having a silent, manly cry, but he looked almost scarily calm. He didn’t seem to really be interested in anything around him, and just stared out the window at the darkening sky.

“We need a plan,” Darcy said after a moment.

Loki shrugged indifferently. “Is it permanent?” he asked. He spoke evenly, like he was trying to keep all emotion out of his voice. Like he’d just been told he only had six weeks to live.

“I don’t know,” Darcy answered honestly. She put her knitting down so her attention didn’t seem quite so divided. “I’m not even sure that’s what they did. I mean. You’re talking fine. You’re hardly even code-switching. If they’d done that to me, what they did to you, I’d never recover. You don’t even have a scratch on you.”

He looked down at his hands again, frowning at them like something was wrong with them. From where Darcy was sitting, they looked fine. Just a long cut along his left one that was almost completely gone already. She wondered if that was a power, or just natural biology. But something about his hands was deeply interesting to him for some reason. It was like he’d never seen them before, the way he was looking at them, fingers held straight out as he examined ever inch of his hands and forearms. He seemed to almost get lost in concentration, until whatever he was looking for was clearly not to be found, and he gave up in frustration.

“You said you can’t make sparks. Do you mean like…” Darcy wasn’t sure what she meant, but Loki had made it sound like the most important thing in his life.

“Not anyone can learn magic. You must have an innate talent for it,” Loki said. He looked away, focusing on a point of the floor far to his right. “I once exhausted my magic entirely. I nearly met my death.” He inhaled deeply and grit his teeth so hard, Darcy could hear it from across the room.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Well, even last night, you didn’t seem like you were gonna die. Pass out, maybe, but…” She shrugged, not really sure where to go with that. It seemed like there was more to it than he was telling her, but she wasn’t going to push. She wasn’t even sure why he was telling her this much. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know.

“We still need a plan,” she said. “They’re getting really antsy, and it won’t be long before they find you.”

Loki buried his face in his hands, breathing slowly and deeply. After a few moments, he looked back up at her thoughtfully. “Can you get me to Torshaow?” he asked.

Darcy shook her head slowly. “I don’t know where that is. I’m sorry.”

Loki frowned. “Well. Where are we now?” he asked.

“New Mexico.” Darcy felt like she was about to repeat her very first conversation with Thor. Surely, Loki at least realised he was on Earth, right?

Judging by the way his frown deepened, maybe not.

“Where’s Old Mexico?” he asked.

Darcy tried to stop herself from laughing, but didn’t quite succeed. “A few hours to the south. If you’re looking for like, Norway or whatever, that’s way on the other side of the world.”

Loki threw his hands up into the air and leaned against the wall. He looked like he was about ten seconds away from giving up and just turning himself in. Maybe if he did, SHIELD or SWORD or whoever wound up with him would actually treat him like a person.

Or maybe she was completely delusional. She quickly reached back for her Laptop and pulled up Google.

“Okay, let’s see if we can find it,” she said. She typed in _Torshaow_ and got nothing but Twitter accounts and German soccer videos on Youtube. That probably wasn’t it. Humming to herself, she highlighted the last two letters and replaced them with a U. This time, the results were social media and white pages matches.

“Do you know how to spell it?” she asked.

Loki shook his head and shrugged. “With your writing? No.”

Darcy backspaced on the U, not sure what else to try. After a few seconds, Google loaded a pull-down menu of possible search queries and brought up the results for the first one on the list.

“Wait. Hey, come here. Is this it?” she asked. She waved Loki over and pointed at her screen. She didn’t understand some of the IPA symbols, but some of the vowel sets definitely seemed like the rounded ones Loki used.

Loki stood up and leaned over the bed to look at the screen, with a small map of Tórshavn and the relevant Wikipedia page linked at the top. She clicked on one of the images, filling the screen with a small city nestled against a harbour with rolling green hills in the distance.

“Yes!” he said, sounding almost excited.

“How the fuck does that spell Torshaow?” Darcy wondered aloud. She started clicking on the other images, mostly interested in the brightly-coloured little Viking houses.

“Can you get me there?” Loki asked.

“That’s still on the other side of the world,” Darcy told him. “Thousands of miles away, on the other side of the ocean.”

Loki glared down at the screen. He chewed on his thumbnail and sat down, suddenly way too close to Darcy to be comfortable. She shifted away, but he just leaned in again.

“Get me to Tórshavn. There is a path there that leads to Alfheim,” he said. He took the laptop from her and moved away so he could click on the pictures he wanted to see. Darcy took the opportunity to breathe.

“What’s Alfheim?” Darcy asked.

“It’s where the elves live. I have allies there.”

Darcy was torn between moving away and leaning closer to see which images Loki was clicking on. Ultimately, she decided on moving away, but also scooting back against the headboard so she was more or less behind him. He seemed more interested in the landscape photos, but Darcy figured that made sense. He probably wanted to make sure it was the same town he remembered.

“I think you could probably get into Canada. It’s an unguarded border, because no-one suspects Canadians of trying to sneak into the country. You might have better luck getting across the Atlantic from there.” Darcy couldn’t believe what she was saying, but she couldn’t stop herself either. She wanted him gone, and not condemned to some lab somewhere, so getting him into Canada was probably the best thing for everybody.

“Where’s Canada?” Loki asked.

“A few days to the north, if you drive,” Darcy said.

Loki looked over at her expectantly.

“Oh, hell no. I am not driving you to Canada,” Darcy said. She did move away from him now, as if he would grab her and make her drive him to Canada right then and there. “Are you nuts? You saw how much of an ordeal it was to just go to the store. I’d never get onto the highway.”

Loki shifted his attention back to the laptop. “Perhaps not,” he agreed. He went quiet for a few minutes while he clicked on more pictures. “No, I think I should stay here for a while. They’re bound to lose interest eventually, and then you can take me to Canada.”

Darcy frowned, feeling not for the first time like she was going to cry. “I am not taking you to Canada.”

“Well, I don’t know where it is,” Loki pointed out.

“So look it up.” Darcy leaned over and Googled Canada for him. “The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Canada is north. I think you can find it on your own.”

“You’re very disobedient for a slave,” Loki said, now clicking on pictures of Canadian wilderness.

“I’m not a goddamn slave. Quit calling me one,” Darcy snapped at him. She was tempted to snatch the laptop away, but decided to sulk against the headboard instead.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. I can’t leave until the guards are gone. What do you call them?” Loki looked out the window, setting an annoyed glare on the people who were presumably still up on the roof.

“SHIELD,” Darcy said. “They’re kind of assholes. My life was a lot less weird before they showed up.”

Well. Before Thor showed up, but he was at least weird in a harmless kind of way. SHIELD were just menacing and intrusive.

“When SHIELD leaves, so shall I,” Loki said. He clicked on a picture of a moose and frowned at it. “And not a moment sooner.”

Darcy was starting to see the appeal of locking herself in the bathroom. At least if she did that, she wouldn’t have to face a constant reminder of her own idiocy.


	10. Chapter 10

Darcy finally closed the curtains as the sun dropped behind the mountains completely, casting the entire valley in shade. She’d gone back to her knitting while Loki trawled through Tumblr some more, frowning at post after post of cat gifs. He seemed to just be going through her list of tracked tags, which was kinda creepy in a way. Darcy tried to ignore it and worked on an avocado-green square.

He kept snapping his fingers, though. Not even loudly; more like he was just trying to give his fingers a work-out or something. Loki rooting through her Tumblr account, Darcy could handle. The snapping was starting to seriously get on her nerves.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked finally. “Because it’s really annoying.”

Loki stopped and looked down at his hand. “I’m trying to make sparks,” he muttered.

He’d mentioned the sparks before, and Darcy still didn’t understand it. “Why is that something you want to do?” she asked.

Loki looked up at her, giving Darcy the very strong feeling that he was trying not to outright glare. “What they have taken from me is something which they should not have even been able to touch,” he said. He looked down at his hands again, running his thumb over the fading cut on his hand. “They should be praying that I do not get it back, because when I do, they will beg for a swift death.”

Darcy moved as far to the edge of the bed as she could without falling off. She was glad Loki wasn’t even looking at her, because if he was, she probably would have pissed herself or starting crying or something. Luckily, she didn’t do either.

“Please don’t say things like that,” she said quietly, holding her knitting close to her chest like a shield. “When you say things like that, it makes me want to… not help you.”

Loki looked up at her, and something in his face changed. He was still pissed off, but he didn’t look quite so genocidal. It did nothing to calm Darcy’s nerves.

“You would not wish death on one who had so grievously violated you?” he asked. Not quite demanded, but close.

“No! Of course not. I don’t want anyone to die,” Darcy said quickly.

Loki didn’t look away from her, staring at her with a terrifying intensity. Like he was looking for something that was wrong, but couldn’t find it. Darcy shifted away again, nearly toppling over the edge of the bed.

“I mean. I don’t know. Probably not, but I’ve never had anyone do anything like that to me before. A guy at a concert grabbed my tit once, and I slugged him for it, but that’s it. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to stop grabbing my tit.”

“But you carry a weapon,” Loki said, his eyes falling to her handbag. 

Darcy looked over at it, wondering if she could reach it before he did. She was closer, but he was bigger, and probably faster. 

“For self-defence,” she said. “Against creeps who think no means ‘take me, I’m yours’.”

Loki went quiet for a long moment, but he didn’t stop staring at Darcy. After a while she started to get the feeling he wasn’t even seeing her, and was just sort of staring in her direction while he got lost in his own head. Darcy stayed where she was, still trying to decide if she wanted to grab her taser and arm herself.

Finally, Loki looked away and nodded, conceding something he didn’t feel like vocalising.

“I wish to bathe and would like to not wear these same clothes,” he said out of nowhere.

Darcy wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him right, and took a few seconds to respond. “Uh. Yeah. Just…” She pointed over to the dresser. “Help yourself. The pyjamas are probably the only thing that’ll fit you, though. And there’s a clean razor in my lunch box in there. I mean, you’re getting kinda scruffy.”

Loki rubbed his cheek as he got up to dig through the dresser. It didn’t take him long to find something to wear and disappear into the bathroom. When the door clicked shut, Darcy slumped so hard that she did fall off the bed, but she didn’t care. She lay on the floor, feet still up on the mattress, and hummed nervously until her chest didn’t feel quite so tight. The worst part was that when he wasn’t actively trying to freak her out, he was almost kinda nice. He had to have been terrified. Maybe being a major dickmunch was just his way of coping.

No. She wasn’t going to defend him. He was a creep and he was dangerous, and she wanted him gone. And the sooner, the better.

She stayed on the ground, listening to Loki fight and swear at the shower (she assumed he was swearing, anyway. It sounded like swearing) for the next few minutes, not sure what to do next. Ultimately, around the time the weird Viking swearing stopped and all she could hear was the shower running, Darcy decided that what she really wanted was to sit in her pyjamas and eat left-over pizza while watching boring television. And like hell if anyone was going to stop her.

She got up, trying to balance moving quickly with moving quietly, and dug out the last pair of clean pyjamas she had. Damn. She’d have to worm her way into getting out to the laundromat too. Assuming it was even still open. Double damn. She pushed all that aside and changed as quickly as she could, never once taking her eyes off the bathroom door. The whole time, Loki didn’t seem to even think about coming back into the main room, but Darcy still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was being watched anyway. Or maybe that was just the paranoia speaking. Or the spooks across the street who had actually been trying to watch her all day.

Was it really paranoia when you had proof that someone was trying to watch you?

Whatever. She didn’t care. Or at least, that’s what she told herself. She didn’t care, and she was going to just pretend that this was all perfectly normal. She pulled the perfectly normal pizza from the fridge and put a few slices on a perfectly normal plate, and microwaved it all with a perfectly normal shot glass full of bottled water. Loki was still in the shower by the time the microwave finished, but he could stay in there all night, for all Darcy cared. She had everything-on-it pizza, and after flipping through a few channels, Judge Judy. It was almost a perfectly normal night.

Loki took forever in the shower, and had probably used up all the hot water for the entire hotel by the time he came back out again. But at least with him taking so long, it gave Darcy a chance to calm down and collect her nerves. She looked up at him as he wandered back out, looking far less scruffy and angry than he had when he’d first gone in there.

“Dude, you were in there for almost an hour,” Darcy said. She looked down at her plate, with the one room-temperature slice of pizza left on it, and slid it toward what was unnervingly becoming Loki’s side of the bed. “Hungry?”

Loki sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the plate. He kept watching her, in that way that people do when they’re trying not to let on that they’re watching someone.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Darcy was almost surprised he knew how to say it.

“So, I was thinking. You know, while you were in there draining the desert of all its water.” She looked over, but didn’t seem to get any reaction from him. “You made it so those guys across the street can’t look in. Why can’t you, you know. Just do that to yourself and walk out?”

Loki stopped picking off all the peppers from the pizza and looked up at the window and the oppressively-patterned curtains that covered them. “It doesn’t work that way. Some runes can be drawn on a person and have minimal effect, but something that complicated…” He frowned and bit into his pizza.

“What?” Darcy asked.

Loki said something that sounded suspiciously like, “I’d need a very sharp knife.”

Darcy didn’t want to know. Either he’d suddenly grown attached to her tiny hotel room, or he’d already run through every possibility for escape about eight times over. And he didn’t exactly look thrilled to be there. She was pretty sure that if there was anything they could agree on, it was wanting him gone as soon as possible. So there was that, at least.

“Okay. Well. If you’re still hungry, there’s a bunch of stuff still in the fridge. I have a mountain of homework to get through, so. I’m gonna do that.” Darcy sighed, not really in the mood to do her homework. But it needed to get done, with or without her little Norse problem.

She stared at her feet, in her polka-dotted socks, for far longer than necessary before reaching over to pick up her laptop to start working on her essay that was due in two days. Whoever decided that twelve credits were required for her loans and grants to go through deserved to be kicked in the face.

The course was at least an easy one. Two short essays a week on random-ass subjects, just to make sure that she knew how English worked, as far as she could tell. It wasn’t that she didn’t know enough about the subject to even bullshit her way through — she just didn’t care enough about family holiday traditions to write anything.

Slowly, she started pecking out words at a snail’s pace about how Christmas worked with her family, and how uneventful and predictable it was every year. She never got any hilarious stories about that time Auntie Marge dropped the punch bowl on the turkey, or when Cousin Jackie got drunk and threw the tree outside, or whatever. Wake up, breakfast, presents, and a day at home with her parents until Christmas dinner. So boring.

She’d actually got so caught up in writing her thousand words about Christmas that she didn’t even notice Loki moving around the hotel room until she heard him laughing.

“What?” she asked.

She looked up to find Loki by the dresser with her frigging vibrator in his hands. He flicked the rabbit ears a few times before turning it over in his hands to examine the rest.

“Oh my god, no!” Darcy said. She tried to put her laptop off to the side and get out of bed, but didn’t exactly manage to do it as quickly as she’d have liked. By the time she got to her feet, Loki found the power switch and just started laughing all over again.

“Not for you!” Darcy snapped as she snatched it away and turned it off. “Oh my god, what is wrong with you?”

Loki kept right on laughing. “What’s the point of the rabbit?” he asked.

Darcy grit her teeth and shook her head, not sure if she should be pissed or humiliated. She was doing a pretty good job at being both, really.

“If you can’t figure that out on your own, then you’re not old enough to be having sex,” she said.

She stuffed the vibrator back into her underwear drawer, trying to ignore the fact that Loki had been digging around in there. She was starting to think that if ignoring things were an Olympic sport, she could win the gold at this point.

“Unless I tell you it’s all right to go digging through my things, you are not allowed to go digging through my things. Got it?” she said, rounding back on Loki. The son of a bitch was still giggling to himself.

“All right,” he said, wandering back over to the fridge. He didn’t sound terribly honest, but Darcy wasn’t in the mood to get into it with him.

“Now, I have to do this stupid-ass assignment and I don’t have the time to be babysitting you. I know you’re bored, but you’re also an adult. You can have my laptop back when I’m done, but until then just. Stay out of my stuff.”

She sat back on the bed and picked her laptop back up. Of course, she’d completely lost her tenuous grip on her train of thought, and couldn’t conceive of a way to squeeze another eight hundred words out of her damned essay.

“It occurs to me that we are both adults,” Loki said, clearly thinking it was the smoothest line he’d ever delivered.

Darcy grit her teeth and tried not to scream. Whether she wanted to scream at him or because of him, she wasn’t sure. But with that single sentence, he’d gone from being almost bearable to completely out of line all over again.

“Nope,” she said stiffly. “And just for that, you’re sleeping on the floor tonight.”

She realised she should have made him sleep on the floor the night before, but he’d looked so pathetic and broken. It was hard to believe that was only a day earlier. And now here he was, being the biggest creep ever.

“No, you’re not an adult?” Loki asked.

Darcy didn’t look up from her computer screen. “No, you’re not coming anywhere near me.”

Just to make her point clear, she picked up the pillow next to her and threw it onto the floor.

“Do not touch this bed,” she said, finally looking up to meet him in the eye. He didn’t look nearly as happy as he had a few minutes ago, but she didn’t care. “My house, my rules. Fucking capiche?”

Loki grit his teeth so hard, Darcy swore she could hear it. He stepped forward, and Darcy was certain she’d done the wrong thing, but it was too late to take it back now. She sat stiffly, not sure what to expect. But the only thing he did was snatch up the pillow from the ground and took it over to the far corner, where he sat and glared at his knees.

Darcy breathed in deeply as all the tension slipped away from her body, leaving a nervous relief in its wake. Loki could still do anything, and him being on the other side of the room didn’t necessarily mean anything. But it was kind of comforting anyway, just having that little bit of distance between them. She just hoped SHIELD would get bored and go away very, very soon.


	11. Chapter 11

Darcy actually couldn’t believe that Loki stayed off the bed. She doubted like hell that anything she’d said had intimidated him in any way, but something seemed to have worked. He hardly moved at all from his little grouch corner, which in and of itself was enough to make Darcy just a little bit paranoid that he was plotting something sinister. She saw that drawing in Erik’s library book. It had practically embodied sinister, and here was the man himself slowly unravelling a sock. Darcy almost yelled at him for it, but decided he could have the damn sock. She didn’t need it.

After the most painful seven hundred words she’d ever forced out, Darcy gave up on her essay and emailed it to her professor. It wasn’t finished, and she couldn’t even be bothered to read it over once to check for any egregious typos, but she’d take the C. She thought she deserved an A+, pass the class forever for even trying to do her coursework with an escaped lunatic in her hotel room, but she wasn’t even going to try to explain that to her professor. 

“Do you want my laptop?” she asked, hoping that if she kept her promises, Loki would be more inclined to let her live when he finally made his escape. 

Loki barely looked up at her and shook his head. Apparently destroying the sock was more interesting, so Darcy shut down the machine. She put it down on the floor and slid it under the bed so she didn’t accidentally stomp on it in the middle of the night. The clock on the bedside table said it was just barely eight in the evening, but Darcy was exhausted. She’d hardly slept the night before, and with Clint dragging her out of bed at oh-god o’clock, she was running on empty. She wanted to just go to bed, but then she caught Loki out of the corner of her eye and decided that going to bed would be stupid. But it was cold, because the heater had been built by an idiot, and no-one in New Mexico had ever heard of insulation or double-glazing. She’d turned the heat on twice, only to turn the room into a temporary sauna before the room dropped back to ridiculously cold again after she turned it off. Something buried deep in whatever survival instincts she had made her want to just curl up and sleep all through the winter. Or maybe that was just the exhaustion. Either way, it wasn’t good.

Just to give herself something to do, she started flipping through channels again, not even trying to find anything. News, Spanish programming, PBS trying to get money, news, news, news, crappy sitcom, boring cop drama, and then the cycle started over.

Apparently channel-surfing through eight channels was boring enough to lull her to sleep, because at the fifth pass, the TV stopped on the Spanish programming and stayed there.

She barely registered the TV turning off, drifting somewhere being completely asleep and awake. Darcy burrowed deeper into her blankets, but the hotel was furnished with summer heat in mind, and the blankets were kind of thin and useless.

What woke her up in an instant was Loki once again invading her space and thinking that he could just cuddle with her.

“Dude, what the fuck?” She fought against him, pushing him as far away from her as possible. “I told you to stay off the bed!”

Loki rolled his eyes. “You’re freezing. You’re of no use to me dead,” he said flatly.

“I—You—What?” Darcy said, tripping over her own tongue. It took her a moment to catch up with exactly what Loki had said, and when she did, it was like a punch to the face. She’d somehow wandered into a full-blown hostage situation and hadn’t even realised it.

“Fucking oh my god, no!” she said. She sat back on her ass and started kicking at him as hard as she could, trying not to get tangled up in the blankets. “Get— off— the bed!”

Loki relented and returned to the floor to glower at her. Which was fine. He could glower all he wanted. As long as he stayed on the floor, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

“If you freeze to death, someone will notice your absence, and when they come looking for you they will find me here,” Loki said. And he sounded so irritatingly calm, too. Like he hadn’t just tried to cop a feel, or whatever the fuck he thought he was doing. “In light of the situation, I would say your survival is in our mutual interest.”

“Wow, no wonder they threw your ass out of Space Viking Land. It’s not all about you, you know.” She ignored the venomous glare Loki gave her and looked back at the clock instead. It was five in the morning already.

“I _was_ gonna try to go back to bed, but after yesterday, Clint’ll probably be here early, so what’s the point?” Darcy said, throwing her hands into the air. “Put a movie in.”

“No,” Loki said incredulously. His royal ass-ness had probably never been given an order in his life. Darcy didn’t care.

“Hey, _you_ —” she jabbed a finger in his direction “—just violated _me_ —” she pointed at herself “—and now I’m telling you to put a fucking movie in!”

She slumped back against the headboard and glared at the wall in front of her. After a few moments of tense silence, Loki reached for the DVD book and flipped to a random page and plucked a disk from it. While he had his back turned to her, pressing every button on the DVD player about eight times until something happened, Darcy took the opportunity to grab her handbag from the floor and fish her taser out. She was back up against the headboard by the time Loki finally figured out the DVD player and got _Pirates of the Caribbean_ playing. It was actually one of Darcy’s favourites, but she’d never tell Loki that. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

He turned, and his eyes caught the taser in her hand, but he said nothing.

“Come near me, and I swear I will tase the shit out of you,” Darcy threatened.

Loki rolled his eyes again and sat back in his corner. For a moment, Darcy wondered if he’d even slept at all that night. She wondered why she cared.

The two of them sat in absolute silence through the movie, neither saying so much as a word to one another. And then of course, someone started pounding on the door just as Jack Sparrow shouted about blowing holes in his ship. If she wasn’t so annoyed and freaked out about everything else, Darcy would have actually felt smug over being right about Clint showing up early.

She waved at Loki, barely waiting for him to hide in the bathroom before she got up and threw the door wide open to give Clint her best glare.

“Start getting ready, girlie,” Clint said. He probably thought he was so clever. Darcy wondered if she could tase him and get away with it.

“Are you letting Jane go out to do science today?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Clint said.

He’d probably go all ninja spy on her before she even tried to tase him. Stupid secret agents.

“No science, no Darcy,” she said. She didn’t want to be stuck in the room with Loki all day, but she wanted even less for him to be there alone all day. He was absolutely certifiable, and there was no telling what he’d do if left to himself for long enough.

Clint rolled his eyes. Darcy was getting real sick of people rolling their eyes at her.

“You’re just gonna stay here all day?” he asked.

“Yep.” Darcy held her chin up in what she hoped was a suitably defiant gesture. “The contract I signed with Jane, and not you, says I only have to be in the lab when science is happening. If I’m gonna be bored all day, I’ll at least be bored in the comfort of my bed.”

Clint stared at her for a long moment, before shaking his head. “Whatever. Worst mission ever.”

“Worst internship ever,” Darcy grumbled. She shut the door, hoping Clint would go away and not knock again. As soon as she re-locked the bolt, she nearly fell to the ground. She braced herself against the door and just focused on not hyperventilating. After that performance, she deserved an Oscar.

“When this is over, you are paying me my weight in gold,” Darcy said.

Loki peered out of the bathroom. He looked around the room quickly before his eyes fell on her, where they lingered almost obscenely.

“Very well,” he said. It wasn’t the reaction Darcy expected, and she wasn’t sure how to respond to it. 

She tried to shake it off as she sat heavily back on the bed. “Well, either way, you have got to go somewhere else. This is getting way too freaky for me.”

Loki walked up to the window and pushed the curtain aside to peer out. “They’re back,” he said quietly. 

Darcy wasn’t even aware that they’d left, assuming he was talking about the spooks across the street. She absolutely refused to think about the fact that Loki was pretty much just as trapped as she was. She wouldn’t let him be the victim here.

Except he kind of was.

Except she wasn’t thinking about that.

“You’re seriously saying that you did some freaky magic thing to the window, but you can’t do some freaky magic thing to yourself so you can leave?” she asked.

Loki didn’t answer her. Instead, he looked at whatever freaky magic thing he’d done to the window, and frowned at it.

“I should probably refresh that, actually,” he said. He didn’t sound very thrilled about it, though. But if he’d done what Darcy thought he’d done, she couldn’t really blame him there, either.

“What happens if you don’t?” Darcy asked.

Loki shrugged. That was real encouraging.

“Okay. Well.” Darcy took a deep breath and tried to sound like she didn’t think she was about to say something totally stupid. “I’m gonna have some breakfast. I guess if you promise to stay on your side of the bed, you can sit up here too, so you don’t have to eat on the floor.”

Loki turned, and even bowed, but she was pretty sure he was mocking her. “How very gracious of you,” he said. Totally mocking her.

“Yeah, well I’m still mad at you. And I meant what I said about the taser.” She picked it up again, just to get the point across.

“Understood,” Loki said.

Darcy waited for him to walk around the bed before she got up to go dig through the fridge. She grabbed the rest of the chicken, not even caring about the time of day, and piled it all onto one of her cheap plates. While she waited for it to heat up, she pulled the last two cans of Pepsi out and tossed one onto the bed for Loki.

“How does it work?” he asked suddenly.

Darcy wasn’t sure she knew what he was talking about. “What, the microwave?” she asked.

“Your weapon. What does it do?” He was looking at the taser, on the floor by her feet, but he didn’t seem like he was about to make a grab for it. She’d be able to get it faster, anyway.

“Oh, uh. It shoots these barbs into the person’s skin and electrocutes the fuck out of them.” She looked down at the device and almost laughed. “I used it on Thor when we first met him. Man, he went down hard.”

For a second, Loki looked almost annoyed, but it was quickly chased away by something that could have been amusement. “You met Thor in combat?” he asked.

Darcy did laugh. “I knocked his ass out. And if that thing works on him, it’ll work on anyone.”

Loki laughed as well, and when he inclined his head this time, it seemed a little more genuine. Darcy wasn’t sure what to make of that either, aside from maybe the fact that now Loki might think twice about trying to cop a feel.

The microwave beeped and Darcy pulled out the plate and put it down on the bed, not even caring that it might get a little bit of grease on the blanket. As soon as Loki was gone, Darcy was going to request full service from the housekeeping staff. And maybe suggest that they burn everything, just to be safe.

“Mmm, breakfast of champions,” she said to herself as she walked back round to the far side of the bed, sitting as close to the edge as possible. Loki was doing pretty much the same, so at least there was plenty of space between them.

He held his Pepsi in his hands and turned it over a few times, examining the can.

“How do you open it?” he asked.

“Like this.” Darcy showed him by opening hers. Loki nodded and copied her, seeming strangely pleased at getting it right. 

When Thor learned these little things, he’d been kind of cute. Like a lost puppy who just learned a new truck. Loki just managed to look smug. Which was weird, because who looked smug about opening a can of Pepsi?

Darcy just wished he’d go away. When he wasn’t freaking her out, he was confusing her, and she didn’t like either.

She intended to sit back and watch the rest of her movie, but for some reason, her mouth wouldn’t shut up.

“So. Any plans?” she asked.

Loki looked over at her expectantly, and she could practically see what he was thinking.

“That don’t involve me driving you to Canada,” she amended.

“That rather depends on what sort of distraction I can conjure up,” he said distantly.

“I’m not going to be your hostage and your distraction,” Darcy said.

Loki frowned. “You’re my hostage?” he asked. And maybe he was just playing her, but his confusion seemed genuine. And that just made Darcy’s head hurt.

“I—Yeah?” Wasn’t she? Darcy didn’t even know anymore.

Loki just hummed, like he was thinking that over. He picked up a piece of chicken and pulled at some of the meat, eating with his fingers like he’d grown up doing it.

“If you were my hostage, wouldn’t that mean you’d have to do as I say?” he asked.

“Well, I’m not gonna,” Darcy said.

“Very well.” And what the hell did that mean? Since when did he start being so… agreeable? Not that it was a bad thing that he wasn’t trying to freak her out, but it was still kind of freaking her out.

She pretended she hadn’t heard him and picked up a wing, making a bit more of a mess than Loki did. Not that she cared.

They watched the rest of the movie in a slightly more comfortable silence. Or at least, Darcy watched the movie, while Loki started digging through the bedside table and flipping through the phone book and Bible with a mixture of distaste and curiosity. Darcy was pretty sure Loki couldn’t figure out what the two had to do with one another, or why they were both left hidden away in the same drawer, but she figured she’d just let him ponder on that in silence.

When the movie was over, the player skipped right on over to _Dead Man’s Chest_ , and Darcy let it. She was actually starting to feel kind of tired again, but she figured that was probably because it was still stupidly early, and she’d just eaten. It also meant she was kind of dozing off again when someone knocked on the door. Loudly.

“Shit,” she hissed, jumping up and wide awake. 

Loki didn’t even have to be told that time, and slipped back into the bathroom to hide. Darcy looked out of the little hole in the door, somehow not surprised to see Clint glaring sourly at nothing in particular. Of course it was Clint. She thought she’d made herself clear about going in, but apparently not.

She unlocked the door, and as soon as she opened it, Clint pushed his way inside with a fucking bow in his hands. Like he was some modern-day Robin Hood or something. Darcy yelped loudly as she jumped out of the way, and then actually screamed when Sitwell grabbed her.

“No, Darcy. It’s okay,” Sitwell said. He tried to guide her away from the door as some other bald guy in a black suit walked in. SHIELD apparently attracted bald guys.

“You’re safe now,” Sitwell said, trying to turn her so she couldn’t see Clint with his bow, or the other guy with his gun. “The kid from the pizza place said he saw Loki here the night before last. Is he still here?”

He didn’t sound like he was there to arrest her. He sounded like he was there to rescue her. Darcy almost wanted to cry. The only reason she didn’t answer Sitwell was because she was afraid if she tried to say anything, she would cry.

“Gig’s up, Loki. Come on out, and I’ll only shoot you once,” Clint said, pulling back the bowstring just a little bit more.

There was a loud crash from the bathroom, and Darcy turned quickly to see Loki holding the fucking shower rod like it was some sort of ninja stick.

“Oh my god, help,” Darcy said. For a second, everything seemed to almost go green. She buried her face in her hands and wished she could just go back to before Thor ever landed in the desert. To when her life actually made sense.

“It’s okay,” Sitwell repeated. “You’re gonna come with me, and Loki’s going to go with Deems and Barton, and everything will be just fine.”

Darcy wasn’t sure what ‘just fine’ meant, but she didn’t really care. She just wanted to go away. Before she could say anything, Loki shouted loudly and lunged forward. He hooked the shower rod into Clint’s bow, pulling it away from him, and causing the arrow to fire into the floor. He swung the rod around, pulling Clint off balance and smashing the free end into Agent Deems’ face. 

Sitwell reached for his own gun and put just enough distance between himself and Darcy for Loki to grab her and pull her close. Darcy screamed as everything went very dark and very loud.


	12. Chapter 12

Darcy was pretty sure her ears popped so hard they were going to start bleeding. Which probably wasn’t a good thing. She kind of liked being able to use her ears.

She expected to hear gunfire, but all she heard was just white noise screaming at her from all directions. And she couldn’t see a damn thing. The first thing that registered after her eardrums nearly burst was the cold. But not the stinging cold she was used to. This was a wet, permeating cold, with sideways rain. Or maybe it only seemed sideways because someone was pressed up against her side and holding onto her like it was the end of the world. For all she knew, it was.

She managed to open her eyes to find that someone was Loki, and that no, it was definitely raining sideways. Darcy had no idea where they were, other than somewhere old. Not ancient old, but still. Kinda old. Red brick buildings with white stone arches everywhere, and the street was actually made of cobblestone. She and Loki stood just underneath a bridge that looked like the kind of place people went to get mugged. Or thrown under a train, she realised. They were standing right on the tracks, which were pressed down into the road.

“What the fuck? Where are we?” Darcy asked. She looked around, but all she really noticed was that they were at least lucky enough that only a few people were around to see them apparently appear out of nowhere. And most of them were too busy paying attention to the dog dressed up as Elvis, howling along while his owner strummed out _Hound Dog_ on his guitar. If anyone did notice, they didn’t seem to care.

“I don’t know,” Loki said. His voice sounded wrong. Looking up at him, Darcy saw why. He looked like he had been thrown under a train. He was almost as bad as when she’d first picked him up, only without the blood. She was pretty sure he was about to puke, actually.

Well, great. She tried to nudge him over to the low platform behind them, if for no other reason than to get them off of the tracks and back out of the rain. He stumbled against her and nearly tripped over the raised edge, but somehow they both managed to stay on their feet.

“Hey, did you just do freaky magic stuff?” Darcy realised aloud. “You said you couldn’t do freaky magic stuff! Fucking liar.”

“I don’t…” Loki swayed heavily, nearly pulling Darcy off her feet anyway. “I’ll be fine.”

Darcy tried to steady him, not entirely believing him. She remembered that flash of green she’d seen in the hotel room, at the time thinking it was just her imagination. But it must have been Loki, right before he bamfed them to God-knew-where.

She didn’t have her handbag. She didn’t have her taser. She didn’t even have shoes. They were both just standing there, under some bridge in the rain, in pyjamas. Darcy rather inappropriately realised that she was glad she tended to wear men’s pyjamas, on account of women’s pyjamas not being allowed to have pockets. At least it meant that Loki wasn’t wearing what amounted to flannel capris, so they didn’t look completely nuts.

Actually, one guy on the other side of the tracks was wearing one of those flappy-eared beanie hats and shorts, so maybe they didn’t stand out so badly after all. Darcy wondered if that guy was even cold.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know where we are,” Darcy said, trying to find anything around her that might have given her a clue. The sign announcing the stop only said Skidmore Fountain, which told her exactly nothing. “Where are we?”

Loki shook his head. “As far away as I could manage.”

They were under a bridge, so Darcy was glad that he hadn’t put them down in whatever river was probably nearby. She figured she’d yell at him about that later, but they couldn’t just stay where they were. Darcy breathed in deeply a few times and looked around again. There was some sort of big machine standing at the centre of the platform that was probably for tickets. Maybe if she was lucky, she’d find the last person’s change in it.

She considered just leaving Loki where he was and letting him fend for himself, but he kept hanging on like a giant leech as she walked over to the machine. No-one had left their change in it, and the machine wanted two dollars she didn’t have. And that was just for one ticket. She wondered how heavily the trains were inspected, since the fares were self-service. 

“Is that thing broken again?”

Darcy looked up to see a guy wearing glasses without lenses and the most godawful ugly shirt ever. She wondered if he had a moustache tattooed on his finger.

“No, I…” She shifted out from under Loki’s weight on her shoulder and got an idea. “My friend’s really sick, and my dad just freaked out on us. We just need to get to my friend’s house, but she’s way out in butt-fuck nowhere.”

The hipster pretty-decent-guy-actually frowned and pulled out his wallet. But instead of cash, he pulled out a little book of pink, paper tickets and tore two of them out.

“Oh my god, are you serious? Thank you so much,” Darcy said, taking the tickets from him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, shaking his head. “I get a month pass from work now anyway.”

“Thank you. Again,” Darcy said. She waited for the guy to leave before inspecting one of the tickets to see if it needed to be stamped. It did, so she spent another few seconds trying to figure out how the machine worked.

“You owe me so much,” Darcy grumbled to Loki. She wanted to scrub her tongue just for calling him her friend.

Loki shifted against her, and she was pretty sure he was using her as a human crutch. “I’m already giving you your weight in gold.”

“Yeah, well, I think you should double it,” Darcy said curtly. She put the stamped tickets into her pocket and tried to wiggle out of Loki’s grip, but he just held on even tighter.

“Fine,” he said.

Darcy tried to ignore her hanger-on and looked around again. There was a sign almost right above them that she hadn’t noticed before, probably because it wasn’t lit. But she could still make out the the letters in the dark, glass tubes. Apparently, they were in Portland. That narrowed it down to either the East Coast or the West Coast. Annoyingly, it meant they were closer to Canada either way. Damn Loki, always getting his damn way.

“I hate you so much,” she said quietly.

“I know.” 

Darcy almost wanted to laugh.

She didn’t even hear the train until it was almost right there, ringing its bell as it slowed down to stop at the platform. A recorded woman announced the stop and which side of the train the doors were on, and then a recorded man repeated it in Spanish as a few people shuffled out of the train. Once the doors were clear, Darcy nudged Loki inside and took the first empty seat. Loki fell heavily next to her and closed his eyes like he was about to go to sleep.

“If you pass out, I’m leaving you here,” she told him.

“No you won’t,” Loki said. He definitely sounded like he was about to fall asleep.

The train started forward with a small lurch and a high-pitched whirring sound, and for the first time since Clint nearly busted her door down, Darcy had time to actually think about what was going on. Her chest grew tight as she realised that she had been well and truly kidnapped this time, with no way of getting back. Loki probably wouldn’t even let go of her long enough to let her sneak off to a pay phone. She guessed if she did get the chance, she could probably call Jane. Then she felt bad for not thinking to call her mother.

And then she wondered if anyone had even told her mother what had happened. Were they telling her right now? She hoped it wasn’t Coulson. Sitwell would at least be friendly about it. Or would they fob it off to someone who was actually in New York?

And then she realised that if they hadn’t got to it already, at five o’clock, her Tumblr was about to make them realise that she might not have been as kidnapped as they thought she was. Which was just as fucking ironic as it got, since now she’d actually been kidnapped. Maybe if she was lucky, she could get to a computer and delete the post from her account before it went live. Or at least before SHIELD saw it.

So many bad choices in such a short amount of time. Maybe it was a good thing she wouldn’t be finishing her degree now. She’d probably make a terrible politician.

She turned to look out the window behind her, hoping to get a better idea of where they were. As they passed through an intersection, the Oregon plates on the cars gave her a little bit of hope, and another idea. Another terrible, terrible idea, but it was the best option. She knew there were people in Portland who could help her, if she could find them. Darcy turned round to the young woman in a seat to her right and waved her fingers at her.

“Hey. Do you know where the tide mark is?” she asked.

The woman shook her head and gave Darcy a confused look. “No, sorry. Is that a club?”

“No. Thanks, though.” Darcy smiled tightly at her and tried to nudge Loki off her shoulder again.

They crossed a bridge, and the river Loki nearly put them into, and stopped under yet another bridge. Darcy supposed it made sense, actually. It kept people out of the rain, at least.

More people got onto the train with their huge bags and their weirdly tall bikes, and took up entirely too much room.

“Hey, do you guys know where the tide mark is?” she asked the guy with the enormous bike.

“What, in the river?” he asked. “Does the river have tides?”

Darcy shrugged. “I dunno,” she said.

“No, it has tides. I’m sure of it,” his lady-friend said.

Darcy let them argue over whether or not rivers had tides and settled back into her seat. She had no idea where they were even going, but she figured they could at least ride around on the train until someone finally kicked them off. At least they’d had breakfast before Loki bamfed them away to what might as well have been Narnia. She was pretty sure someone was even playing a pan flute elsewhere in the car. It sounded like a pan flute, anyway. Or at least, what she imagined a pan flute must sound like.

The bike guy and his lady-friend got off a few stops later, and this time the station was under a highway overpass. Darcy was definitely starting to think that sheltering the stops under bridges was deliberate at this point. No-one else got on though, so she couldn’t ask her nonsense question again.

Once the train got moving, a guy in a big, baggy hoodie walked down the aisle. “Get off at Gateway,” he said as he passed Darcy and walked to the other end of the car to sit back down.

Darcy nodded, not even sure if he was watching her. She had no idea where Gateway was, but she was pretty sure she knew why she’d been told to get off there. She nudged Loki, hoping to wake him up a little bit.

“Seriously, you so owe me,” she said.

He didn’t answer her. She didn’t really care. She just tried to settle in as much as possible and listened to the stops being called out, trying not to be absolutely terrified about somehow walking into a trap.


	13. Chapter 13

Darcy was surprised at how quickly the stop she’d been told to get off at was called. It was apparently a pretty big stop, because the train voice lady had a lot more to say than just which side the doors would be on. Darcy shoved Loki hard and jammed her elbow into his ribs, trying to get him to wake up.

“Let go of me so I can leave you here,” she said

Loki didn’t let go, but he did sit up and open his eyes. He tried to mutter something, but the way he kept his mouth shut tightly made Darcy think he was still kind of wanting to throw up.

“Come on. I’m getting off here,” Darcy told him. She grabbed hold of one of the metal poles and pulled herself to her feet, trying to work against Loki’s weight. He was trying to use her for leverage, and between him and the train slowing to a stop, she nearly fell over right there in the aisle. At least when she actually yelped from the pain and surprise of being pulled in several directions at once, Loki did finally ease up on his vise-like grip.

The train stopped at the station, and Darcy pulled Loki back out into the sideways rain. Not even the roof over the open-air station offered any protection from the worst weather ever. A few seconds after Darcy resigned herself to getting rained on, the guy from the train walked by and waved for her to follow after him. They crossed the tracks to one of the other platforms and stood under the useless shelter with everybody else.

“Is he all right?” he asked, eyeing Loki with some trepidation.

Darcy craned to look up at Loki. He tried to nod, but nothing about it rang true.

“I don’t think so,” Darcy said honestly. As much as she wanted to, she knew she wouldn’t just abandon him. Not here, anyway. She’d get him somewhere safe before trying to figure out what to do about herself. Maybe she could fob Loki off to this other guy.

She watched Loki for a long moment, shifting under his weight and hoping that his grip on her arm wouldn’t cause any bruises.

“They gave him the cure,” she said quietly.

Hoodie Guy went from worried to trying not to be pissed off so quickly, Darcy could barely see the change. He nodded and pointed down the tracks that ran along the freeway. Darcy was so turned around, she wasn’t sure if it was the same direction they’d just come from, or a different track completely.

“I know a place where you can stay. I didn’t know they were doing that here,” Hoodie Guy said.

Darcy wasn’t sure how much she should tell him. He probably wasn’t with SHIELD, but she didn’t think she could really trust anyone anymore. She sighed deeply and tried to shift out from under Loki again. At least this time, Hoodie Guy helped take some of Loki’s weight off of her.

“I don’t know if they do,” Darcy said. Either he was with SHIELD, or he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t, he might not even report them. “We were in New Mexico twenty minutes ago. Maybe they got the dose wrong or something, but he wasn’t like this before he…” She waved her hand, trying to mime being teleported halfway across the country.

She was pretty sure Loki was getting worse, but she didn’t want to say that.

“New Mexico?” Hoodie Guy asked.

Darcy looked around at the crowd on the platform. No-one seemed to really care what they were talking about, but it still made her uneasy.

“Let’s talk about this somewhere else. It’s been a crazy morning, and I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

“Yeah, you never know who’s listening.” He looked out at the overpass, and the train crossing it. “I think this one’s ours. Once we’re on the MAX, I’ll see if I can get someone to pick us up from the mall. I was gonna take the bus, but I don’t think we’d have very good luck with it.”

Darcy snorted despite everything. “I didn’t know the Rising Tide had a taxi service.”

Hoodie Guy laughed as well. “We’re not like Anonymous. We didn’t spring out of the internet. It started out as a code for draft dodgers looking to get out of the country during Vietnam.”

“Seriously?” Darcy asked. She was just hoping to find someone with the Rising Tide so she could borrow their secure internet and delete every last scrap of damning evidence from her Tumblr. But maybe Hoodie Guy could help with a lot more than just that.

The train pulled up to the platform and the three of them managed to wiggle their way on board, and even found an empty seat to try to settle Loki into. As Darcy tried to twist away, Loki’s grip tightened again and tried to pull her down with him.

“Ow, you’re hurting me. Let go!” she hissed through her teeth. Loki looked up at her and finally let her go. She almost wanted to run away right then and there, but if nothing else, she needed to get to a computer. She looked up at Hoodie Guy and rolled her eyes, hoping to distract some of the suspicion that was written plainly on his face.

“So, what do I call you?” she asked, pushing her hair back out of her eyes.

Hoodie Guy gave her a bemused little smile. “Kevin,” he said.

Darcy smiled right back. “I’m Darcy. This one’s Loki. Thanks for helping us out, and if it’s cool, I kinda need to use your internet.” She cringed at him, trying to convey just how badly she needed to get online.

“Yeah, that should be cool,” Kevin said. He pulled out his phone and started texting people, presumably trying to get someone to come pick them up. Darcy was still worried that this had been the worst of her dumb ideas that week, and that the texts Kevin were sending were to the cops or SHIELD or whatever. She realised, standing there in damp pyjamas and disgusting socks, that she really didn’t know anything about the Rising Tide. She knew they claimed responsibility for a few major hacking and whistle-blowing cases in the past, but for all she knew, they were also infested with government moles. But Kevin didn’t look like a mole; he looked like the kind of guy who would get arrested for dealing just because he happened to be standing outside a 7-11. But that would have been the point, wouldn’t it? 

Or maybe Darcy was becoming far too paranoid to be healthy. She was seeing cops and secret agents everywhere. There was no way SHIELD could have already tracked them to Portland. Right?

The ride to the mall went fairly quickly, but by the time they got there most of the crowd had already left the car at the dozen or so stops before. Few people remained to watch Darcy and Kevin try to drag Loki off the train and down a large ramp to the parking lot two storeys below. At least the rain had finally let up.

“He’s definitely getting worse,” Darcy said aloud. She tried to shake him with her shoulder, but he hardly seemed to notice it at all. “Wake up. You’re heavy and you’re scaring me.”

Loki forced his eyes open and looked over at Kevin in confusion. He’d been half-asleep since they got to Portland, and probably didn’t even know what the hell was going on around him.

Kevin had managed to have someone waiting for them at ground level in an old Honda. A woman about Darcy’s age watched the three of them from behind the wheel for a moment before twisting around to move something around in the back seat. Kevin opened the back door and managed to get Loki inside without cracking his head on anything, which made Darcy wonder how many barely-conscious people he’d given rides. She dashed around to the other side of the car to get in behind the driver, fiercely ignoring all the times she’d been told never to take rides from strangers, and didn’t even complain when Loki immediately decided to lean on her.

Twisting around in the front seat, Kevin reached out for Loki’s wrist. He frowned as he took Loki’s pulse, and then without warning, reached back and put his hand against the side of Loki’s neck.

“Is everything all right?” Darcy asked. She was torn between watching him and looking around for any cops that might object to Kevin sitting backwards as they drove through the parking lot.

“I can’t tell,” Kevin said. He twisted his arm and pressed the back of his hand against Loki’s skin. “He might be hypothermic. He’s freezing.”

“Fuck, really?” Darcy sat up as well as she could. Now that Kevin said it, Loki did feel kind of cold. She wasn’t sure if he’d always been that cold, though. She hadn’t noticed him getting any colder at least.

“That’s not a typical side-effect of the cure, though.” Kevin turned back round in his seat as they pulled out onto the main road.

“They gave him the cure?” his friend asked. She darted a quick look into the back seat, frowning dramatically.

“Yeah.” Darcy tried to shift again, but suddenly she didn’t feel the need to shove Loki off of her completely. She just wanted to not be crushed. “But he’s not a mutant.”

Kevin turned back again to look at her. “The hell they’d give him the cure for, then?” he asked.

Darcy looked over at Loki. He needed help, and these people were their best bet right now. It was either that, or hand him back over to SHIELD, who would probably only keep him alive so they could keep poking him with sharp things.

“He’s from another planet,” Darcy said flatly. “I found him a couple days ago. SHIELD or SWORD or whatever were using him as a living science experiment. I took pictures and put them on Tumblr, and now SHIELD’s gonna find them and they won’t do anyone any good.”

There was a drawn-out silence between everyone. Darcy shifted again, getting Loki so he was leaning more against her than laying on her, which was about as good as it was going to get.

“How do you know?” Kevin asked.

“What, that he’s from space? Because his brother came to Earth a few weeks ago. And a few of their friends. They opened this… wormhole thing and travel through space like that. Loki came a few days after they left.” Darcy looked out the window at all the dirty little shops and garages that seemed practically deserted. She wasn’t sure if it was the area or the weather that made them seem abandoned, but the street seemed like a pretty busy one. Maybe no-one wanted to get out of their cars.

“You said you came here from New Mexico,” Kevin said. He reached back again and pressed his fingers against the inside of Loki’s wrist. “How’d you get here?”

Darcy shrugged. “Well, they gave him the cure, but it didn’t work, apparently. It’s meant for mutants. Not… whatever the hell he is. One minute we were in New Mexico with secret agents pointing guns everywhere, and then we were here.” She twisted her neck to look at Loki. She never thought she’d miss his annoying finger-snapping, but now they were right back to that first night when she’d found him in the desert. “He got sick right after that. He told me this happened to him once before. Said it almost killed him.” She said the last part quietly, almost as if saying the words might make it true. She hated him, but the last thing she wanted was for him to die. She thought maybe she should have called SHIELD, because they probably would know how to keep him alive. After everything they’d already done to him, they probably knew exactly how to keep people alive through things that should have killed them.

Somehow, suddenly everything seemed like it was her fault. Maybe he would have been better off if she had just reported him to SHIELD. He wouldn’t have been dying in the back seat of someone’s car, at least.

“Tina, can you go any faster?” Kevin asked. He glanced around quickly before climbing into the back seat with them.

“Going as fast as I can,” Tina told him. “Unless you want me to start running red lights.”

She turned at the next intersection, taking them down a road that grew progressively more suburban than urban, with big, tall trees replacing business parks and shopping centres.

Kevin slapped his fingers against the side of Loki’s face. “Loki, can you hear me?” he asked.

Loki shook his head and tried to push Kevin away, which was probably a good sign. 

“How long ago did he get the cure?” Kevin asked.

Darcy shrugged and shook her head. “I’m not sure. Maybe…” She tried to remember what all had happened that first night. “He’s been with me for a couple of days. When I first found him, he was a mess. You should have seen him. He heals really fast, thought. You can’t even see any of it now, except for his hair.” She remembered how she wasn’t thinking about that. “A couple of days ago, I think.”

Darcy wondered if Kevin would be as helpful if he knew everything that Loki had done. She watched quietly as Kevin tried to wake him up, not sure what else she could do to help. Loki looked positively grey, but Darcy couldn’t tell if that was what he actually looked like or if it just looked like that against Kevin’s dark skin as he kept slapping his fingers against Loki’s face. Loki was always kind of pale, really. And he was still pretty wet. Maybe it was just everything coming together to make him seem worse than he was.

Or maybe he’d travelled halfway across the galaxy to die in the back of a brown Honda Civic. Up until that moment, nothing had seemed quite real. Suddenly, the weight of everything had hit Darcy like a punch to the chest. She covered her mouth with both hands and tried to keep very quiet. The only alternative would have been to start screaming right then and there, and she definitely didn’t want to do that. Her face grew hot as she willed herself to not just break down and start crying again. She was thousands of miles from home with someone who had nearly killed himself either kidnapping or rescuing her. She wasn’t even sure. She’d told him so many times that if SHIELD caught them, they’d arrest her as well. At the time, she believed it. Maybe Loki did too. Maybe he hadn’t kidnapped her at all.

Or maybe he grabbed her when he left because he knew this would happen. Darcy couldn’t believe that he’d trust her like that, but why wouldn’t he? She’d already helped him and nursed him back to health once before. What if he knew that getting away would hurt him? What if he brought her with because he knew she’d help him again?

Darcy didn’t want to think about it. She tried not to think about it, but with the very literal weight of the situation leaning on her, she couldn’t ignore it. She’d grown very good at ignoring things, but this was so real and so terrifying that nothing else could even start to edge in on it.

“We’re almost there,” Tina said over her shoulder. She took a corner a bit too quickly, skidding a little on the wet pavement. “Honey, everything’s gonna be okay. Kevin knows what he’s doing.”

It occurred to Darcy that Tina was talking to her. She rubbed her eyes with both her hands and nodded, not sure what to say. It didn’t feel like everything was okay. Everything was the very opposite of okay. Darcy had no idea what was even going on anymore, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to panic or completely break down. Maybe she could do both.

They took another corner and stopped on the side of the road outside a small house with an overgrown front yard. Tina stopped the engine and got out to quickly run up to the house and unlock the door, while Kevin started pulling Loki out of the car. Loki was muttering something, but Darcy couldn’t even tell if it was in English or Space Viking. It just sounded like muttering. 

She knew she should have been helping Kevin, but she couldn’t even get up. She just sat there, utterly useless and trying not to completely lose her mind. The only thing that got her moving was the realisation that she was sitting in a stranger’s car trying not to cry. She’d be far more comfortable trying not to cry inside, at least. Finally, she got out of the car and followed Kevin and Tina up to the house, catching up with them at the door. Deciding she could at least be useful, she hooked Loki’s arm over her shoulders and helped walk him toward the back of the house, where Kevin was trying to lead them. They came to a bedroom that looked like it belong to somebody, with the unmade bed and laundry on the floor, but it didn’t seem to matter. They got Loki down onto the bed, getting him as comfortable as they could before putting a few blankets over him.

Kevin felt Loki’s neck again before leaving the room. He was gone only a few moments, returning with an old glass thermometer. After managing to get it into Loki’s mouth, he stepped back again and pulled out his phone to send a few more texts.

“He was fine this morning,” Darcy said. She wasn’t sure why she said it, but standing there in silence was doing nothing for her already-frayed nerves.

“I’m finishing up at OHSU. I’ll call in a few favours. See if we can’t get some stuff down here.” Kevin finished sending his text and reached out for the thermometer.

“OHSU?” Darcy asked.

“Med school,” Kevin said, not even looking up.

“Oh.” She watched him frown at the thermometer as he held it up to the light. “What’s wrong?”

“Eighty-four,” Kevin said. He looked up at Darcy, looking like he wasn’t sure about whatever he was thinking. “You’re serious. He really is from…” He pointed up toward the sky.

Darcy almost laughed. “Yeah,” she said. She hugged her arms against her chest and shrugged. “Crazy, I know.”

It didn’t seem to do anything to ease Kevin’s mind. “I have no idea how to treat him,” he admitted. “For all I know, eighty-four’s completely normal.”

Darcy shrugged again. “I don’t know. It was below freezing down in New Mexico. Everything was cold. I didn’t even notice if he was.”

It occurred to Darcy that Loki didn’t even seem to have noticed the cold at all. He slept on top of the blankets when he did sleep, and seemed perfectly fine in just a t-shirt, while she was freezing her ass off.

“That first night he was with me, he passed out as soon as I left him alone. Then he was fine in the morning. Maybe he just needs to sleep,” Darcy guessed. She had no idea what he needed, but a dry place to sleep was probably a good place to start.

Kevin seemed to accept it as well. He nodded and put his phone back into his pocket.

“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the door. “You’d better get that stuff before it gets deleted. It might be useful to have.”

Darcy looked over at Loki and nodded. There was no physical evidence this time, but SHIELD or SWORD or whatever had done this to him as well. No matter what Coulson had said, they were not the good guys. Good guys didn’t do this to people.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

She followed Kevin out of the room, because there was nothing else she could do.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck, sorry about the huge delay here, guys. I'm doing a bunch of exchanges right now, and those are taking precedent.

Kevin’s computer set-up was like a geek command centre come to life. He had three monitors taking up most of his desk, with one of those funny bendy keyboards that lit up and had way more keys than were even necessary. Darcy wasn’t even sure what some of them were for.

Any other time, she might have indulged her curiosity and played around a bit, but there wasn’t time. They’d only been out of New Mexico for about forty minutes, but a lot could get done in forty minutes. She wasted no time in pulling up the browser and pulling up Tumblr, but when it came time to enter her login information, she found herself stalling. She’d hacked New York’s DMV just a few weeks before, but signing into her own Tumblr account made her head swim. What if SHIELD traced her? She didn’t want to get Kevin and Tina into trouble for helping her.

“How many proxies are you behind?” she asked as her fingers hovered just above the keys.

“Chained VPNs,” Kevin said. “You’re fine. Trust me.”

Darcy nodded, and stalled a few moments more before finally logging in. Or, at least, attempting to. Instead, she got kicked out for an incorrect password. Darcy tried to tell herself that it was just Kevin’s weird-ass keyboard, and that she’d mistyped, so she tried again. And again, she got an incorrect password error. Starting to panic anew, Darcy typed in her blog’s URL, taking great care to make sure every letter was correct. She even double-checked when she was done typing, but when she hit enter, Tumblr spat a 404 error at her.

“Fuck!” Darcy hissed, pushing herself away from the desk. She knew this was going to happen. SHIELD found her posts, and now there was no way in hell they’d believe she was an unwilling victim. If only she’d had her phone, she’d at least still have the photos. But SHIELD had that as well, along with everything she possessed.

“Fuck, fuck, shit, no,” Darcy said as she buried her face in her hands. “Goddamnit!”

She clenched her jaw tightly to keep herself from completely freaking out, but it didn’t feel like it was going to work. Either she had to completely disappear forever, or SHIELD were going to make her disappear forever. It was the worst choice ever, and Darcy hated Coulson and Sitwell and Loki and Clint, and everyone else involved for forcing her to make this choice. She didn’t want to disappear. She wanted to finish her degree and move from her crummy internship to an even crummier one, because it would actually help her career. Now she didn’t even have any career prospects. It was kind of hard to hold down any kind of job when you have to leave the country forever.

“Fuck, this is not happening,” Darcy said, ignoring the burning in her face and the wetness in her eyes.

Kevin pulled up another chair and sat down next to her. At first, Darcy thought he was going offer her comfort in his big, manly man arms, but he just took the keyboard and mouse instead.

“You said SHIELD had him?” he asked.

Darcy nodded, and then shook her head. “SHIELD arrested him, but apparently they gave him to something called SWORD.”

“I’ve never heard of that one,” Kevin said as he pulled up the command console and dragged it to one of the other monitors. “SHIELD, I know. If there’s something shifty going on, chances are SHIELD has a hand in it.”

Darcy snorted bitterly. “Yeah, that gas station fire that was barely a blip on anyone’s radar? That was an alien weapon exploding. It took out half the town.”

Kevin gave her a sideways glance before starting to look up what he could about SWORD. He couldn’t find anything on the internet, but that wasn’t saying much. There were plenty of shadow organisations within the government, and an internet presence would sort of defeat the purpose. He maximised the command console to take up the entire monitor and started typing like he knew exactly what he was doing. It had taken Darcy an hour just to figure out how to get into the right database to forge an identity for Thor. She’d thought that was pretty good, but Kevin was making her look like a complete amateur. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. She could tell he was breaking into something, but she couldn’t tell what.

“If SHIELD gave your friend to this SWORD, they probably have a linked database somewhere, and I might be able to get in from there. I wanna see what these bastards are up to.” He typed away like a mad typing thing, pausing only to bring up another command console window. He started working in that one, making Darcy feel like a total noob.

“Sweetie, do you want to take a shower?” Tina asked from across the room. Darcy looked over to see her holding a towel and some clean clothes. Now that the offer had been given, Darcy realised she was still rather damp and cold.

“Yes, please. Thank you,” she said. She stalled just a moment, looking back at what Kevin was doing, before she got up to follow after Tina. She wondered if the offered clothes were Tina’s, and if they were, how big they were going to be on her.

Then she realised she didn’t care. Clean clothes were clean clothes, and she’d take whatever she could get. Tina showed her where the bathroom was, and even explained how the shower worked, for which Darcy was grateful, because she’d have never in a million years figured out on her own that she was supposed to pull down part of the bath faucet to make the shower go.

As soon as she was left alone, Darcy turned on the taps. Mostly so nobody could hear her in case she started to cry again. She kept telling herself she was not going to be that person, and that nothing was ever solved by crying in the shower, but the weight of everything pressing down on her made her just want to curl up into a ball and scream. But she really wasn’t going to do that, no matter how much she wanted to. 

She stood in the middle of the bathroom in her damp pyjamas with her face buried in her hands, willing herself to just keep it together. She wasn’t going to be that person. She wasn’t going to cry in a stranger’s shower. She was going to get clean, get dressed, and then go figure out what the hell she was supposed to do next. The only thing that kept her from just standing in place for the next ten minutes was that the shower was already running. She wasn’t going to waste a stranger’s water either, so she quickly undressed and stepped under the spray. The water wasn’t even very hot, but it felt like it was boiling against her skin. Darcy hadn’t realised how cold she was until she started getting warm. She’d never really understood what people meant when they said something was a dry heat, or a dry cold, until being bamfed from New Mexico to Oregon. In New Mexico, the cold was more of a biting chill. But with the addition of rain, she felt like she’d been thrown into an ice bath. Even her bones felt cold.

She didn’t do anything for a long time, and just stood under the hot water instead. Slowly, the burning sensation in her toes subsided, and she felt brave enough to turn up the heat a little more. She stopped shivering, and just stood there, staring at the white tiles on the wall.

In the end, she never even bothered washing up properly. Once the hot water started to run out (which she almost felt bad about, but not quite), she turned off the water and forced herself back out to dry and get dressed. The jeans Tina had given her were kind of long, but more or less fit her round the waist, suggesting they probably belonged to Kevin. Same with the t-shirt. She wasn’t so sure about the hoodie, because all good hoodies are way too big, and if they fit, they’re too small. She dressed quickly to avoid the chill that was already starting to settle in the air, and gathered up her nasty wet pyjamas before wandering out of the bathroom. On her way back out to the living room, she stopped at the bedroom where they’d put Loki. It looked like he’d been undressed, but it was kind of hard to tell with the big duvet he’d been covered up with. Darcy was almost tempted to walk in and make sure he was still breathing, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to cross the threshold. She kept telling herself that she didn’t care, even though a very large part of her kept pointing out that she clearly did. 

She ignored both parts and finally left, making her way back out to the living room. 

“Where’s your friend?” she asked. She wasn’t sure what to do with her pyjamas, so she just held onto them.

“She’s picking some stuff up for us. Stuff for your friend.” Kevin was still at his hacker command centre, apparently getting some actual hacking done. He had his browser back up on one of his monitors, with the command console scrolling merrily away on another one. 

“Wow, are you in?” Darcy asked as she walked closer. Looking over his shoulder, she could see he was in some sort of database, but he wasn’t clicking on anything as he scrolled through the three-mile-long page. “That was fast.”

“I’m not sure what I’m looking for, or where I’ll find it, so I’m just syphoning off as much as I can.” He pointed over to the command console, which seemed to be documenting file transfers.

“You’re way better at this than I am,” Darcy said, impressed. She watched the command console tick away faster than she could read it. “What have you got so far?”

Kevin shrugged. “Let’s start taking a look.”

Darcy sat down in the other chair and watched as Kevin navigated through the files he was stealing from top secret government organisations. A lot of them were files the operating system had no idea how to open, but Kevin didn’t seem too worried about those ones. He clicked through folder after folder, scrolling through various reports and databases as he came to them.

“Hey, that one,” Darcy said, as Kevin opened one and then closed it out almost immediately.

Kevin opened it again and maximised the window. It was about Culver, and the Jolly Green Giant’s rampage on the campus. Not exactly relevant to their search, but relevant to Darcy’s interests. There were details there that no news outlet had covered. Details which made it seem like the army was at fault, and not the thing that was rampaging.

“Well, that’s fucking typical,” Kevin muttered as he read the report. 

Darcy snorted as he closed out the window and started clicking through to other ones. After about twenty minutes of clicking files and checking their contents, and casting the occasional nervous glance over to the command console, Kevin found something about New Mexico. The report more or less went how Darcy remembered the whole thing going, but there were some gaps here and there. Like the part about Jane hitting Thor with her car. Twice. 

“That’s him!” Darcy said, pointing excitedly at the monitor. “That’s Loki’s brother. He fell out of the fucking sky, and we almost ran him over.”

Kevin copied the file to another folder and started hunting around the same area he’d found that one. It took only a few tries to find the report detailing Loki’s arrival to Earth. All of it was news to Darcy, since no-one would talk about it when it happened. She had been right, though. That funny white van was an unmarked ambulance. SHIELD apparently thought it was Thor, and were surprised to find someone else entirely. Apparently when he woke up, Loki freaked out and broke some guy’s face, and someone else’s arm, before they finally tranqed him. 

Considering the damage Thor had done to the hospital, Darcy wasn’t really surprised that Loki would have reacted the same way. If she’d woken up on a strange planet, with people wanting to poke her with needles, she’d probably try to break a few faces to get away as well.

There were some photographs embedded in the report, but nothing about them suggested any sort of foul play had gone on by that point. He even had all of his hair, it looked like.

“Alien,” Kevin said aloud. He copied that file to the other folder and started looking around again. The next one he found was a medical report from the same day as the one detailing Loki’s escape attempt. Darcy wasn’t sure what most of it meant, but Kevin started taking notes off it before copying it as well.

The next one he found proved his theory. It was the SWORD report, and either they shared a database with SHIELD, or SHIELD had taken the report for themselves. It was the one Darcy was afraid of finding. She already knew what was going to be in it, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to look away. The pictures embedded were even worse than the ones she’d taken when she found him, and even though she’d seen it herself, she still couldn’t believe he’d already healed from all that. 

“That’s how he was when I found him,” Darcy said quietly. “I don’t know how he escaped, but I found him walking down the side of the highway.”

It occurred to her that maybe he’d done the same thing that brought them to Oregon. He’d probably just bamfed himself away without caring where he went, as long as it was away from SWORD.

“Jesus Christ,” Kevin muttered. He copied those files over as well, and then stopped the transfer in the command console. For a second, it looked like he was about to wipe everything off his hard-drive, but he closed out the window instead.

“I’m gonna put this stuff out there. You were right; it needs to be seen,” he said. 

Darcy nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I was trying to do, but I didn’t really think it all the way through. And now I’m here.” She tried not to roll her eyes, and failed. “I’m pretty much fucked forever, aren’t I?”

Kevin looked over at her, taking a long time to say anything. “Maybe. You guys can lay low here until he gets back on his feet, and then we can go from there.”

Darcy nodded again, feeling incredibly numb all over. Nothing felt real. This wasn’t supposed to happen to someone like her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She was just trying to help someone, and now… And now this. 

“Kay,” she said. “Thanks.”

She wasn’t sure what she should do next, so she just sat in silence while Kevin started working at something else.


	15. Chapter 15

Darcy sat at the kitchen table, looking out at the over-grown back yard. She’d watched as the sky outside had gone from dark and grey to just plain dark, and now all she could see was what was lit by the porch light. There was a small cement patio, piled high with old deck chairs, empty flower pots, and three very sad-looking bicycles, made all the more sad-looking by the ceaseless rain. She was pretty sure it hadn’t actually stopped since her arrival that morning. She wondered how common floods and landslides and sinkholes were, if this is what the weather was like all the time. One thing that could be said though, was that everything sure was green.

And Kevin and Tina both said this was what the weather was like all the time. “Welcome to Oregon,” Kevin said, laughing. Maybe it was one of those jokes that were only funny if you lived there, or maybe Darcy was just too stressed out to find anything funny. She wasn’t actually sure.

While Kevin messaged back and forth with someone over some programme Darcy had never seen before, Tina started making some tea with a big, cast-iron kettle on the stove. Darcy usually just microwaved a cup of water.

“Is there anywhere you guys were trying to go?” Tina asked as she dug through a wicker basket full of a million different kinds of teabags. 

Darcy shook her head. “No, I think we were just trying _to_ go,” she said. She looked back out at the rain. “No, wait. Yes. He said he needed to get to, um. Shit. Tor…shaw? Tor-shavin?”

“Tórshavn.”

Darcy jumped hard at the sound of Loki’s voice. She hadn’t even heard him walk in, and had no idea how long he’d been standing there. It couldn’t have been very long, though. She didn’t think. 

He looked absolutely miserable, though. He was still really pale, and had dark circles under his eyes. He was also completely naked, save for a blanket he’d wrapped around his waist. Darcy tapped her fingers on the table, in front of the chair across from her. It took Loki a moment, but he eventually got the hint and shuffled over to sit. Well, not so much sit. More like collapse like he was about to pass out again.

“So, I guess going around naked’s one of those space Viking thing, huh?” Darcy asked.

Loki looked up at her with the look on his face that said he had no idea what anything she’d said even meant. Darcy half-wondered if he’d forgotten how to speak English again.

“Never mind,” Darcy said. She turned her attention back to Tina. “He said he needs to get to this Torshaow place. I’ve never heard of it before, but it’s like, by Norway or something, I think.”

“Get me to Tórshavn,” Loki said, not even bothering to make it sound like a request. At least he still understood what was going on around him.

Darcy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry, they don’t have manners in space. His brother was the same way until we housebroke him.”

This time, it was Loki’s turn to roll his eyes. Tina didn’t really seem to care either way, which just made Darcy wonder if they actually did this sort of thing a lot. People on the run were probably always grumpy. Darcy felt pretty grumpy, anyway. Setting a big mug full of steamy, hot tea on the table, Tina just smiled almost sadly. Before retreating back to the kitchen, she stopped to press her hand against Loki’s forehead, only be shrugged off and pushed away almost immediately. Darcy figured she’d try to be helpful and got up to try the same thing. For some weird reason Darcy did not even want to contemplate, Loki let her feel his forehead with no more fuss than just a quiet glower.

“You do feel really cold,” Darcy said as she sat back down.

“I’m fine,” Loki said. There was a weird kind of almost self-loathing to the way he said it though. Almost like being fine annoyed him.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to believe that, but she didn’t know how to argue the fact that he felt like he’d had his head stuck in a fridge for the last half hour.

“You guys need to get to Norway?” Tina asked. She put another mug of tea down in front of Loki and backed off to get out of his space. Somehow, Darcy was glad to know that she wasn’t the only one kind of creeped out by Loki. Darcy watched him as he sniffed at the tea, and half-expected him to just down the whole thing and smash the cup. Instead, he just treated it suspiciously, like he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

“Well.” Darcy sighed and took a careful sip of her own tea. It was too hot, and over-sweet, and absolutely perfect. “It’s kind of by Norway, I think. It looked like it was, like, on an island somewhere over there? I spent about thirty seconds on Google after he grouched at me about it. I was going to try to point him in the direction of Canada before SHIELD broke down my hotel room door.”

Tina nodded and chewed on her lip for a few seconds. “Do you guys think you can get to Seattle?” she asked.

‘You guys.’ Darcy really didn’t like that, because she was trying to avoid thinking about how completely fucked she was. They were in this together now, whether she wanted to be or not. She looked over at Loki, who actually looked hopeful, and Darcy hated him for it.

“I don’t have any money. At all,” she said. “I mean, everything I had, SHIELD’s got right now.” She sighed deeply and took another drink of her tea. It wasn’t really doing its magic healing soothing thing, but maybe it took more time.

Loki looked like he was about to say something, but Darcy held up her hand to silence him. “If you say the word ‘slave’ one more time, you’re getting hot tea right in your face,” she warned.

Loki no longer looked like he wanted to say anything at all. From where she leaned against the counter in the kitchen, Tina was giving Darcy a questioning look, so Darcy just shook her head. How do you even start to explain that the alien sitting at the kitchen table is one of the asshole gods the Vikings used to worship? Darcy didn’t even want to start.

Loki started snapping his fingers again, making frustrated little noises. It looked like whatever sparks he’d managed to make happen before were gone again, which meant she got to listen to him snapping his fingers constantly again.

“Hey, Kev,” Tina said suddenly. “What are ticket prices right now?”

“What? No,” Darcy protested. She was broke and stranded, but flying to Seattle on someone else’s dime seemed like pushing some serious karmic luck.

Tina shook her head. “We can’t take you up there, but we might be able to get you there. There’s a guy up there who can get you into Canada. After that, I’m not sure.”

But it was a start, and Darcy recognised that. And these people were offering to help them, when doing so could get them in serious trouble. Especially after they’d already done so much. Kevin would probably go to jail for years for what he’d already done. They both would.

“I—“

“I have gold, if that is what you desire,” Loki said, cutting Darcy off before she could start. It was enough to make her completely forget about her reservations.

“You have gold?” she asked dubiously.

Loki looked down at his hands again and frowned. “Yes,” he said. And Darcy got it. He had gold, but not that he could get to. Not without his weird mutant powers or whatever.

“My magic returns to me, but slowly. Once in Tórshavn, I will have access to a great hoard, and you will be rewarded for your assistance. This I swear on my name,” Loki said. And he sounded just like Thor when he spoke, like he really was some sort of royal space prince. King. Whatever. Royal pain in the ass.

“Oh. Uhm.” Tina shook her head and shrugged, looking suddenly very confused.

“It’s a long, weird story,” Darcy said. “He’s basically a Viking, and he’s from outer space. There were a bunch of them down in New Mexico a few weeks ago. You get used to it.”

“I see,” Tina said. She didn’t sound like she did.

“Thirty-three bucks,” Kevin said suddenly.

It took Darcy a moment to realise what his weird non-sequitur meant. That was a cheap-ass flight.

“Wow,” she said. “What airline is that?”

Kevin shook his head. “No, Amtrak. Too much security trying to get on a plane. Same price for the Hound, but the train’s faster, and you probably won’t wind up next to some guy who pissed his paints waiting at the station.”

Darcy laughed, but she wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, that sounds gross. Let’s not do that.”

Loki was looking to her for an explanation, and with everything else going on lately, she thought it would almost be cruel not to oblige.

“Kinda like the thing we got on when you brought us here. But faster, and it won’t stop as often,” she said. “But the thing about really cheap transportation is that you might wind up sitting next to someone who’s been travelling for about a week without a shower. If you spend more money, you can fly, and get there in just a few hours instead. But you have to spend, like, a _lot_ more money.

Loki nodded, but he didn’t really seem like he fully understood. 

“And this will get us to Tórshavn?” he asked.

“No,” said Darcy slowly. “This will get us to Seattle. And from there we can figure out how to get to Torshaow. It’s still clear on the other side of the planet.”

Loki frowned. “Right.”

The level of suck Darcy was going to have to endure was only going to keep rising. She could already tell.


	16. Chapter 16

Even with all the tea they’d drank over the course of the day, Darcy realised she was exhausted. By about ten o’clock, she was struggling not to fall asleep on the couch. Kevin and Tina both disappeared to their room, leaving Darcy alone with Loki yet again. At least he’d wandered off to go sulk in the bedroom, because he didn’t like jeans and Kevin didn’t want him naked anymore. She felt bad about not telling them the full story with Loki and what he’d done, but she knew that if she did, they’d kick her out along with him, and then she’d be fucked again.

She always thought she was the sort of person who would do the right thing no matter what, but she was turning into the sort of person who did the right thing for her. Just one more thing for her to ignore, then.

Darcy was tired enough to fall asleep right there on the couch and not feel bad about it. It was a small couch, and didn’t have much room to stretch out, but she didn’t care. She just curled up against the arm-rest and let herself sleep, blessedly alone for the first time in days. Or at least, that was the plan. It was like he had some kind of sixth sense for it, because almost as soon as she drifted off, Loki was all up in her space again and getting way too buddy-buddy. She shot upright and swung her fists a few times to get him to get the hell away from her.

“Oh my god, what the fuck?” she demanded. “No, you fucking nut.”

“I don’t trust these people,” Loki told her, barely backing off. 

Darcy blinked at him, wondering if it was possible for him to be any more of a pain in the ass. 

“Too bad,” she said.

Loki responded by glaring at her, as if it was meant to intimidate her into doing something. It didn’t.

“Jesus Christ, no. I just want to be left alone. With you somewhere else. I think you owe me that after fucking up literally everything.” As soon as she said it, Darcy regretted it. She was still at his mercy, even if he did look like something that crawled out of the morgue.

“We need these people,” Darcy said, trying to be quiet so Kevin and Tina didn’t hear. “I have no idea where we are. I have no way of getting us anywhere that isn’t here. Be nice. And go away.”

Loki grit his teeth and glowered at her for a few long moments before getting up and starting to stalk back to the bedroom. He stopped about halfway there and turned back around. Darcy glared at him as he sat back on the sofa, and got ready to kick him right in the nose if she had to. She almost did anyway, until he bowed his head and held out one hand, as if offering her something. No, he was definitely offering her something.

“What trick is this now?” she asked, not trusting him to stay on the sofa any more than she trusted him to stay in the bedroom.

“No tricks,” he said. “You’re right. You may as well sleep in comfort tonight.”

Darcy glared at him suspiciously. She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but she wasn’t actually sure when she might get another chance to sleep in a bed. Maybe after SHIELD finally arrested her.

The temptation was ultimately too much, pulling her to her feet before she could stop herself.

“If you step one foot in there while I’m asleep, I’m breaking your goddamned jaw,” she threatened.

Loki held his hands out innocently. Darcy didn’t buy it for a second, but she did want to sleep in a proper bed without having to worry about getting felt up or fucked in her sleep. She was half-tempted to go to the kitchen and find a knife, but that might look strange if Tina or Kevin noticed it.

“Fine. Stay,” she said, pointing an angry finger at Loki. He stayed, so she made a hasty retreat to the bedroom and closed the door. There was even a lock on it, which she wasted no time in using. It probably wouldn’t stop Loki if he really wanted in, but it would give her some warning.

Almost as soon as she flopped down onto the unmade bed, she fell asleep, and did not wake until very, very late the next morning. When she stumbled out of bed, she was almost surprised to find the door still shut and locked. Almost afraid of finding some sort of trap on the other side, she carefully opened the door and stepped out to the hall. Everything seemed quiet, but not suspiciously so. She could hear Tina talking, but it wasn’t until she got back out to the living room that she could tell what was going on. Tina had a hair trimmer in her hand, letting it buzz away menacingly while Loki tried to fend her off with a kitchen chair like some sort of deranged lion tamer. 

“No, it’s not going to hurt. See,” Tina said, holding the clippers against the palm of her hand.

Loki just held the chair up higher, with a look on his face that Darcy had seen once before, when he took out a few SHIELD agents with a shower curtain rod.

“Woah, woah,” she said, rushing over to step between them. She tried to pull the chair back down to the floor, but Loki wasn’t budging at all, so she just turned to Tina and shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

Tina nodded and turned off the clippers. “It stands out,” she said.

Darcy looked up at Loki, and had to admit that there wasn’t much that could be done for his hair, short of shaving it all off.

“Yeah,” she said despondently. Darcy turned back to Loki and tried to get him to put the chair down. “Okay, that thing we talked about last night? This isn’t helping.”

Loki looked away from Tina just long enough to flash Darcy a suspicious glare. Darcy pushed down on the chair again, this time finally getting him to slowly lower it.

“Why don’t you go outside for a little while?” Darcy suggested. “You’ve been inside all week. It’s not even raining now.”

Loki’s suspicious look was fixed back on her, but Darcy ignored it and shoved him in the direction of the door. “Just go,” she said, making it less of a suggestion and more of a demand.

He hesitated for just a few moments longer before finally slinking out the door to go wander about the small back yard. Once the door was shut, Darcy looked back to Tina apologetically, hoping they wouldn’t be kicked out for Loki’s constant stream of crazy.

“Sorry,” Darcy said. “He’s new here. He doesn’t know what… any of this is.” She flapped her arms helplessly at her side and looked out the window at him. Already, he’d found some sort of insect to poke at. It was like dealing with a very large six-year-old.

“Hey, if that’s a spider, it stays outside!” Darcy called through the window.

Loki looked up at glared at her again, before taking his new pet somewhere else. Darcy rolled her eyes.

“I’ll talk to him. See if I can get him to calm down about it,” she offered.

Tina smiled wanly. “Good. Your train leaves at six, so you have to be ready before then,” she said. 

At first, Darcy wondered what that meant, but she wasn’t left wondering for long. Tina reached for a carrier bag on the table and pulled out a box of cheap, blonde hair dye.

“Man, this is some serious Twelve Monkeys shit. Do we have to glue a fake moustache to Himself out there?” Darcy asked.

Tina laughed. “I don’t think he’d let us, and I don’t want to try. Come on.” She led Darcy back to the bathroom. Darcy could have done the dye job on her own, but it was kind of nice having Tina do it for her. Even if they didn’t really know one another, being treated gently was such a huge difference from how the rest of her week had gone that she was glad to go blonde, even if she did look terrible with blonde hair.

“I’m sorry. Again. About all of this,” Darcy said as she tried to pretend she wasn’t being choked by hair dye fumes.

“Oh, no. Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you guys got out of there,” Tina said as she worked the dye into every last strand of hair on Darcy’s head. If not for the smell, it would have been amazingly comforting. It still kind of was.

“You’re from New Mexico, then?” asked Tina.

“Me? God, no. I’m from New York. I was in New Mexico for an internship that was supposed to keep me from burning out of college,” Darcy explained.

In a terrible sort of way, it had worked. Darcy added that to the list of things she wasn’t thinking about.

“Guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore,” she said. It wasn’t funny at all, but she couldn’t quit laughing at the thought of it. Maybe this was what it felt like to be hysterical. Nothing made sense, and she couldn’t even crawl back into bed and hide until it all went away.

“What do I do now?” Darcy asked.

It took a few long moments for Tina to say anything. She stopped working the dye into Darcy’s hair and sat down on the edge of the bath.

“You’re just helping him get to Norway or whatever?” she asked.

Darcy nodded. “Yeah. If I leave him on his own, he’ll just wind up back in a SHIELD prison getting chunks cut out of him. But I’m not staying with him, once he gets there. But I can’t come back, either. I’ve already helped him, so I’m in just as much trouble.”

She felt another fit of despair coming on, and tried to push it away.

“You should go to England,” Tina suggested. “You won’t have to learn a new language, at least.”

“Yeah,” Darcy repeated. “How does that even work, though? I mean, how do I get a bank account and a job? This isn’t just, like, making up a fake ID.”

“You change your name,” Tina said simply. “Take the identity of someone who died, usually. More people get away with it than you’d think.”

“Gross,” Darcy said. She couldn’t pretend to be a dead person. “Don’t they do like, background checks and stuff?”

“Only criminal, usually,” Tina said. Darcy frowned, which seemed to remind Tina of something. “It’s probably best not to question it too much. The more you think about it, the more it would probably get depressing.”

Darcy decided to take that advice and nodded. “So, what’s the plan, then? Now that I’m all hot and blonde?”

Tina stepped out of the bathroom to check a clock. “In about fifteen minutes, we rinse your hair, try to get your friend to cut and dye his, and at five, we’re taking you down to Union Station. When you get off in Seattle, you’ll meet up with someone who will help you across the border.”

Darcy looked at herself in the mirror, her hair all scrunched up and foul-smelling. “I never thought I’d be involved in human trafficking,” she said flatly.

Tina shrugged and reached out to fiddle with Darcy’s hair some more. “Could be worse,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Darcy again, though she was really struggling to see how.


	17. Chapter 17

Darcy couldn’t believe how quickly six o’clock came. It was like time had sped up in a huge hurry just for that one day. They had time for lunch, then a trip to Walmart for a pre-paid credit card, the Salvation Army for backpacks full of clothes and a few books so she didn’t go completely bonkers, and back to Tina and Kevin’s to try and fail to convince Loki to do something about his hair. “Something” eventually became just shoving a beanie onto his head and not letting him take it off, making him look like the world’s grumpiest emo kid.

They left the house around five, driving down slick, crowded freeways to the train station. It wound up being not terribly far from where Darcy and Loki had started out, and now that she wasn’t dealing with the possibility of having a dying alien on her hands, she was able to look out at the city as it passed. Portland was huge, but not very tall; sprawling, and yet still dense, but with room to grow and breathe still.

While Darcy anxiously watched out the backseat window, Loki sat on the other side of the car watching everything else on the freeway suspiciously. He glared out the window, tracking each car as it overtook them or was overtaken, as if expecting any one of them to jump its lane and plough right into them. But since he wasn’t messing with his hat anymore, Darcy ignored him, letting him be suspicious of everything. It was about time he shared some of that misery.

The train station itself with a large red-brown building, with a tall clock tower in the middle. Kevin found a place to park, but even after he stopped the engine, it was a long time before anybody opened their doors.

“Okay,” said Tina finally. Suddenly, Darcy realised that this was probably their first time dealing with this sort of thing too. She wasn’t sure if she felt better or worse about that.

“Okay,” Tina repeated, a bit more calmly this time. “We’re going to go get the tickets. You guys can wait in the terminal while we do that. It’ll be under our names, which will get you on the train, but if they do an ID check while you’re on the train…”

Darcy knew what Tina didn’t want to say.

“Right,” she said. “Maybe we can manage to dodge them somehow. If we’re lucky.”

She hadn’t even thought about ID checks. How were they even supposed to get out of the country? Suddenly, there were so many other ways everything could go terribly, terribly wrong.

Loki looked over at her with that confused look on his face again. It was starting to give the impression that he didn’t like to ask questions and look like he didn’t know all the answers to everything.

“You need… paperwork to travel,” Darcy told him. “Verifying who you are. You don’t have any of that, and mine’s in New Mexico.”

Even if it wasn’t, she wouldn’t be able to use it. She was probably on every watch list in the country by now.

Loki scowled at the answer he was given. They probably didn’t have photo ID in space. Darcy wondered if they even had trains.

“We ready?” Tina asked.

Darcy inhaled deeply, trying to steel herself for what had to be done. “No,” she said honestly. She opened the door anyway and stepped out to the parking lot, with Loki quickly following after her. Almost immediately, his hand was around her wrist again, squeezing tight enough that she knew it would bruise even through her hoodie.

“Ow, no,” she said, trying to pull his hand away. She managed to get his hand away from her wrist, and instead clamped around her own hand. “Still ow. But whatever.”

She managed to reach past him and pulled both their bags out from the back seat. “You need this,” she told him, handing him his. 

He looked down at the bag as if it had personally offended him, but Darcy didn’t care. She rolled her eyes and shut the car door so she could pull Loki along after Tina and Kevin. Inside the terminal, it was warmer than she expected. There were people waiting on benches for their trains, and some hanging out at a small cafe on one end. Tina went over to a blue kiosk and used the pre-paid card to get the tickets, before passing them over to Darcy.

“Good luck,” she said. She looked down at the card and handed it over as well. “I think there’s about fifteen bucks left on it. You might need it.”

Darcy took both of them, and then managed to break away from Loki’s grip long enough to hug Tina.

“Thanks,” she said. She hugged Kevin for good measure after, and was surprised when he hugged back.

“Watch out. Don’t get caught,” he said.

Darcy nodded. “We’ll try.”

With another deep breath, she turned around to look for the platforms. “All right. Come on.” To keep Loki from grabbing her wrist again, she preemptively took his hand and led him through the doors back out to the rain. According to the giant clock tower, it was only about five minutes before their train left. Darcy looked around, suddenly seeing spies and secret agents again. What she wouldn’t give for Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, looking up at Loki. “That thing you did, to keep people from seeing in the hotel. Could you do that to us? Like, keep people from noticing us.”

Loki considered it, looking down at his free hand. “Not easily,” he said. He rubbed his fingers together and frowned deeply. “It’s not the right sort of magic. It wouldn’t bind correctly.”

Darcy had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. “Oh,” she said. “So, like. Not at all?”

“Not without my magic,” Loki said, clearly becoming irritated. 

Darcy decided to do the smart thing and drop the subject. She pulled Loki under the awning as the train pulled up, squealing to a halt as steel scraped against steel. Loki frowned indignantly at the whole affair, as if it too had insulted him.

“It’s like the one we were on yesterday, but bigger. That’s all,” Darcy said.

Loki looked down at her. “What?”

Darcy started to answer, but didn’t want to get into it. “Never mind,” she said.

A conductor stepped out onto the platform and announced boarding to Seattle, while a small group of passengers all stepped off after him. Darcy tugged Loki along and handed him the ticket, immediately getting a deep, irritated scowl from him.

“You didn’t check in,” he said, looking down at the ticket.

“What?” asked Darcy. Wasn’t getting the ticket what you had to do to check in? “But we have the tickets.”

The conductor sighed. “You need to check in,” he told her.

Darcy looked up to Loki, not sure what he’d even be able to do.

“I… I don’t know. How do you do that?” she asked. Suddenly everything felt too hot, and too close, and she could feel Loki getting ready to run and drag her with. She tried to steady him by pulling him closer, but she wasn’t sure it would work.

The conductor let out an even bigger sigh and rolled his eyes. “Twenty five and twenty six. Upstairs,” he said, scribbling something on their tickets.

Darcy could barely stop her hands from shaking as she took them back and nodded. “Thanks. We’ll remember that next time.” They were waved on by the conductor and stepped aboard the train. On the inside, it was more like a Greyhound than any of the commuter trains or subways she’d ever been on. Rows of large blue seats down either side of the carriage, with a stairwell down on either end. Barely able to breathe, and trying to ignore everyone watching them as they made their way down to the end of the carriage, she led Loki up the stairs and quickly found their seats. She decided after all that, she should get the window. She deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to add this on the last chapter, but completely forgot. The reason for the huge schedule slip was because I found myself rather unexpectedly homeless early this year. My husband and I are trying to get a place of our own again, but I'm still struggling to find work, which isn't making the situation any easier.
> 
> I have some paintings up on my [Etsy shop](https://www.etsy.com/shop/LokiOfSassgard), if you would like to help us out.


	18. Chapter 18

Out the window, Washington State whizzed past in a blur of black smudges and the occasional smear of yellow light. Somewhere out there was a river, its path similar to the one the train followed. Darcy couldn't actually see the river, but every now and then, she could see lights reflected on its surface. 

On their right was the freeway, backed up bumper to bumper going both ways. Darcy couldn’t see much through the people sitting on the other side of the aisle, but every time the trees between the track and the freeway cleared, she looked out at the backed up traffic, and the lake that was once an interstate highway. Shortly after they left the station in Portland, the rain became torrential, and hadn’t let up since. 

Beside her, Loki examined every inch of the seats around him. He’d almost immediately found the tray table, and annoyed everyone in the car with it as he let it fall with a clatter and re-secured it, only to let it fall again and again and again.

When he found the electrical outlet, Darcy was half-tempted to give him one of the safety pins from her backpack so he’d jam it in and zap himself. But then that might stop the train and get them kicked off. Or worse.

Now, he’d found the arm-rests, and irritatingly, the mechanism that let him lift them up and down. Of course, he was playing with the shared arm-rest between their seats.

“Would you knock it off already?” Darcy finally snapped, slapping him away.

“How long does it take?” asked Loki, leaning back into his seat like a grumpy teenager.

“You did not just ‘are we there yet’,” Darcy said. She couldn’t even muster the incredulity. “I don’t know. A few hours. Be good.”

Loki glowered at her and jerked the arm-rest down one more time before crossing his arms over his chest and going for the gold in Olympic sulking. Figuring she probably had about five minutes of quiet time ahead of her, Darcy reached down for her bag at her feet and pulled out one of her Salvation Army novels. She grabbed it because the cover was kind of hilarious — some half-naked Fabio, and a willowy blonde woman in a torn gown. And somehow, there were five hands between them. Darcy could already tell it was going to be amazing.

She was about three pages in when Loki finally got bored with sulking. He reached over and wrenched the book around look at the cover.

“Hey, stop it,” Darcy protested, pulling the book away from him.

“More of your pointless drivel?” he sneered, almost certainly just trying to spin discord to amuse himself. 

Darcy hit him with the book. “Don’t knock it. They may be stupid as hell, but they have smokin’ hot sex scenes.”

Loki grabbed the book again, this time twisting it so he could see the page. Darcy fought back, trying not to tear the book apart. “No, stop it,” she said, finally wrenching it from his grip. “Should have got your own.”

“You should have ‘got’ one for me,” Loki said. He reached for the book again, but Darcy slapped his hands away.

“All right. Fine. Calm down, your royal ass-ness,” Darcy said. She reached into her bag and pulled out the second book. Before she even had a chance to hand it over, Loki snatched it away.

“Can you even read?” Darcy asked dubiously.

Loki frowned as he thumbed through the pages. “Of course I can.” He slapped the book shut and tossed it back to her. “I’m not in the mood.”

Darcy laughed. “All that drama, and you can’t even read. I’m not reading mine out loud to the class, so you’re on your own.”

Loki sank deeper into his seat and glared straight ahead.

“How are you even for real?” Darcy muttered. Most of the other people in the car were all looking at them now, but Darcy ignored them. If Loki wanted to be a giant ass and attract attention, then fine. Let him. She didn’t care. Once he got where he wanted to go, and got off the planet, she was done with him. She still wasn’t sure what she’d do after that, but ‘be glad that Loki was gone forever’ was going to be at the top of the list.

Especially since he’d started messing with the tray table again. Darcy watched him from the corner of her eye, almost waiting for him to spring up and try to derail the train or something. Thankfully, he stayed seated and just sulked in silence. And the sound of the tray table banging around. After a while, he seemed to be almost fighting unconsciousness; his motions growing sluggish and imprecise. He was probably still hurt in ways Darcy couldn't see. Actually, now that she thought about it, he probably was. 

"Hey," she said, nudging Loki in the side. "Take a nap. You're acting like a grumpy three-year-old."

Loki snorted derisively. 

"You are," Darcy said. 

"I'm fine," Loki said. He glowered about the carriage, casting everyone in it a sour, distrustful look. He didn't say anything else, but Darcy got it all the same. There was no barrier between them and the rest of the passengers. Darcy doubted anyone on board would mess with them, let alone recognise them, but it wasn't certainty. And Loki must have known it too. 

"I'll wake you up if anything happens," Darcy said.

Loki cast her a dubious look. He probably expected her to run as soon as his eyes were closed. If she didn't expect Loki to get his stupid ass arrested again, Darcy would even take the opportunity to flee his side. She was fairly certain literally anywhere would be better. 

"I'm fine," Loki repeated, betrayed by a yawn he couldn't quite stifle. 

Darcy didn't even try to hide her laugh. She shook her head as Loki glowered at her again and went back to her book. She hadn't got far enough into it yet for it to have got to the good bits, assuming it would have any good bits, but she was determined to stick with it until at least the halfway point. 

Despite Loki's protests, he settled back in his seat, less defiantly and more like someone who was contemplating a nap. While everything else seemed to have healed, he still had terrible raccoon eyes, and Darcy was pretty sure they were getting worse. 

"What did you do last time?" Darcy asked before she could stop herself. 

"Last time what?" asked Loki with extra grump. 

"Last time you got sick like this." It was probably. Stupid thing to ask, but she couldn't stop herself. 

Loki sighed, long and put-upon. "How am I expected to get any sleep with you prattling incessantly?" he asked. 

"Oh, now you want to sleep." Of course he did. And it was probably his very own idea, which came to him without any outside influence. "I wanna know. Maybe I can help."

Loki gave her another dubious look, but there was more to this one. Something Darcy didn't want to contemplate.

"I slept for about a week," Loki said after a long moment. "Followed by a good fuck."

Darcy didn't know what else she'd expected. "Not happening," she said firmly. 

Loki gave her a suggestive little grin, which made Darcy want to headbutt him. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," she said. She grabbed her books and her bag and shoved right past Loki, taking the empty seat in front of her. "Don't even think about touching me, or I'll scream rape."

Loki barely seemed fazed, which only pissed her off and disgusted her even more. She couldn't even focus on her book now, because of the creep behind her, and all the disgusting fantasies that no doubt filled his perverted, fucked-up head.


	19. Chapter 19

After years of riding the subway, Darcy could almost feel it in the air, before she ever even saw it. 

Fare inspector. 

They were about twenty minutes out of the most recent stop, but she didn't think he would have got on there. He was probably the guy who handed out pillows or something. He was up at the front of the car, taking tickets and checking them against IDs and the passenger manifest. IDs which, even if she and Loki had, wouldn't have matched the names on their tickets. 

"Shit," she hissed, jumping out of her seat and back to Loki. At some point, he'd actually gone to sleep like a well-behaved child, and Darcy had to shake him awake. 

"We got trouble. Wake up," she told him. 

Loki blinked awake and glared at her, but at the moment, Darcy was more afraid of the fare inspector than of her deranged travel partner. 

"We have to hide. Or something. I don't know," Darcy said. 

Loki looked up and finally seemed to notice their impending problem. He cast about almost as frantically as Darcy had, eventually setting his attention back on her. 

"Something sharp. Now," he ordered. 

Darcy hesitated, wondering if Loki's plan was going to involve putting a knife to her throat like the hostage she was. She glanced up at the inspector, slowly making his way toward them, and picked over her backpack. 

"Here," she said, pulling off one of the totally punk rock safety pins that decorated the front of the bag. "It's all I have."

Loki glared down at it, and then up at the inspector. There wasn't any time left to argue, and they both knew it. Without any warning, Loki jammed the safety pin into his wrist and jerked it around, making him start to bleed all over the place. There was less blood than Darcy expected to see, but still more than she wanted to see.

“Oh my god, what?” she squealed.

“Shut up,” Loki demanded. 

He reached over and pulled down the neckline of her shirt to expose her neck and chest. Squealing indignantly again, Darcy slapped him away, but he responded by grabbing her wrist tightly enough that she knew it was going to leave bruises.

“Do not fight me, girl,” he said, and brought her hand up to her shirt. “Hold it down and help me.”

Some of the other people were looking at them again, and Darcy wondered why none of them were helping her. Not wanting to turn into a live snuff performance, Darcy pulled down the neckline of her shirt as he’d done. Instead of stabbing her through the neck, or pulling out her throat, Loki started drawing on her bare chest, using the blood from his wrist. It was warm, and sticky, and went against every personal health advice ever.

“Oh my god, gross,” she said. She covered her mouth with her free hand, hoping that she wouldn’t wind up vomiting all over her own lap. She couldn’t even watch what he was doing, but utterly and completely failed to ignore his sharp, pointy fingers jabbing into her chest. She turned her head away, staring at the seat in front of her and trying not to gag or cry or just collapse into a fit of despair. How had this become her life? Who the hell had she pissed off to deserve this?

Loki finished with one final, unnecessary jab and pulled her face so she had to look at him again.

“Me,” he said.

Darcy looked down at his bloody wrist and almost did gag.

“You want me to…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence, and definitely did not want to go fingerpainting with alien blood.

“No,” he said, once again grabbing her wrist and pulling his hand where he wanted it. Darcy got the hint and pulled down his shirt so the top of his chest was bared.

Loki cast a quick glance up to the fare inspector, now only a few rows away, before he started painting on his own skin. Watching him, Darcy noticed that when he’d grabbed her, he’d got blood on her wrist. Great. It would match the bruises.

Somehow, watching Loki paint on himself wasn’t as bad as watching him paint on her. How he managed to do it upside down, craning his neck in a way that looked like he was about to break it, Darcy had no idea. The design he painted on wasn’t like the ones he’d put on the window in the hotel room. This was more like a picture, with all sharp angles and pointy bits sticking out of it.

He finished and used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the blood off of his hands, but his wrist still kept bleeding. As the inspector came to the couple before them, Loki leaned close to Darcy, gripping hold of her knee as if to keep her from running away.

“Do as he asks. Say nothing,” Loki warned.

Darcy nodded, suddenly far more afraid of Loki than of getting caught with falsified tickets. As the fare inspector stepped up next to their seats, Loki’s grip on Darcy tightened, like he was trying to poke a hole straight through her.

“Tickets and ID please,” the inspector said.

Darcy looked over nervously to Loki. Whatever he’d done with his fingerpainting hadn’t work, because the inspector could obviously still see them. Loki nodded almost imperceptibly, so Darcy tried to smile as if Loki wasn’t trying to dislocate her knee, and handed over the tickets. She had no ID to hand over, but Loki gripped even tighter to her knee, so she sat back and stayed quiet.

The inspector scrutinised the tickets, looking back and forth between them and Darcy and Loki. Any minute, he was going to ask for ID, and then they’d really be in trouble. Darcy would be arrested and thrown in a SHIELD jail forever, and Loki would wind up strapped to some table in an underground lab, having bits of him cut out and turned into biological weapons or something.

And then, for no reason at all, the fare inspector nodded and handed the tickets back. He didn’t even say anything as he turned to the next passenger. Almost immediately, Loki released his grip on Darcy and collapsed against her with a sigh that could have either been relief or exhaustion. Darcy couldn’t tell.

“That was seriously close,” Darcy said, trying to shrug Loki off of her.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he said with his face pressed into her shoulder. “How long until we reach Tórshavn?” 

“I don’t know. It’s on the other side of the planet,” Darcy told him. She wondered how big his planet was, and if something being on the other side of it was just a day’s drive or something. “It could be weeks, since we can’t fly there.”

Loki groaned.

“Hey, are you all right?” Darcy asked. She tried to nudge him so she could see his face, but he was too heavy, and resisted.

“I’m fine,” Loki said.

“You don’t look fine,” said Darcy. She looked over at him, covered in blood and trembling. Maybe once they got to Seattle, they could lie low for a few more days. Give him a chance to properly sleep, at least. And maybe eat something real. 

“I’m not… I’m not going to go anywhere. I know that’s what you’re afraid of,” Darcy told him. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. Tina was saying I should go to England after we get you to Torshaow or whatever. And it’s still your fault that I have to make that decision, but you don’t deserve whatever SHIELD would do to you if you got caught. Which you totally would if I left you on your own.”

Loki sighed again. “Would you please shut up,” he said.

“Please. Wow. Did that hurt?” Darcy asked.

Loki finally looked up at her, his face weary and drawn. His raccoon eyes were worse, and now to go with it, he’d managed to give himself a bloody nose. Darcy cringed, knowing that he’d got it on her shirt.

“Yeah, go to sleep,” Darcy said. She settled back in her seat, this time ready when Loki leaned all his weight against her. It was uncomfortable, and she couldn’t use her right arm at all, but at least he was quiet.


	20. Chapter 20

Loki slept on Darcy's shoulder for the rest of the ride. Her arm hurt and her hand was completely numb, but at least he didn't snore. When he was quiet like this, and not acting like he ruled the world, it was easy to forget that he was dangerous. Listening to him sleep against her side just reminded Darcy all over again that he was lost and hurt and probably scared out of his mind.

Lost and scared and probably ready to turn her inside out the second she stopped being useful. 

Except... Except he hadn't actually threatened her with anything. He'd implied and insinuated some pretty foul things, and even tried to cop more than a few feels, but never threatened, and never implied any actual bodily harm. 

Well, no. That, he just went right on and did, didn't he? Darcy had the bruises to prove it. Any time he touched her, it hurt. He grabbed too tightly and pulled too hard, and sooner or later, he was going to pull her right apart. She felt like that mug Thor had thrown to the ground at Izzy's. Sooner or later, whether he meant to or not, Loki was going to smash her into a million little pieces. 

But actually. The realisation hit Darcy like a slap in the chest. Every time she told him -- actually used her words and said it -- that he was hurting her, he stopped. He was from another planet. He'd looked like roadkill the night she'd picked him up, and then looked perfectly fine the next day. He was probably the very definition of not knowing his own strength. He came from a world where people were harder to hurt and break. Loki probably had no idea how fragile humans were. 

And on top of all that, he must have been experiencing some serious culture shock. Thor was kind of a rude bastard at first, too. Rude and scary, actually. And then Darcy tased his scary, testosterone-raging ass and they took him to the hospital in Bloomfield. 

Christ, if they hadn't gone back for him, it could have been Thor under SHIELD's knife. Darcy looked back over at Loki, wondering once again how he'd managed to get away. If he'd actually used his magic or whatever and just bamfed himself away, why didn't he get farther away? And what would have happened if someone else had found him?

"You're pretty damn lucky I'm the one who found you," she said. 

Loki didn't react at all. He just kept right on sleeping, looking like a perfectly normal guy just taking the train to Seattle. 

Darcy shifted under his weight, trying to ease the pressure on her arm. Aliens were apparently really heavy. Who knew? She managed to get marginally more comfortable and picked her book back up. She'd already completely forgotten what was going on in it, and wasn't really feeling the mood to read trashy romance anymore, but the alternative was sitting in silence and looking out the window at nothing. At least trashy romance would keep her busy. 

It was almost 10:30 when the King Street Station was announced. Darcy was on the verge of falling asleep as well, and jerked wide awake at the announcement. She looked around at everyone getting ready to get off the train, even though they were still moving, and turned to Loki again. She shook him, trying to wake him without startling him, but the guy slept like a stone. 

"Hey, wake up," Darcy said, tempted to smack him with her book. "Loki, come on. Time to go."

She shook him until he started grumbling and tried to wave her off. 

"We have to get off here," Darcy told him, shaking him just a little bit more to make sure he was really awake. "We might even get to sleep in a real bed and everything tonight."

Loki pulled himself up to a proper sitting position and Darcy shook out her arm. She had no idea it was possible to be completely numb and still hurt like fuck all at the same time, but there it was. Loki was messing with his wrist, which didn't even look cut open anymore, but was still covered in blood. His raccoon eyes weren't any better, but they were less noticeable against the copper smear of blood on his face. 

"You look like hell," Darcy observed with a grimace. "Might want to try to wash your face somehow."

Loki grumbled again and reached for his backpack. He pulled a shirt from it and used it to clean himself up as much as possible. When he was done, he looked for a place to stash it, but there weren't many places to hide a nasty, bloody shirt, so he just crammed it back into his bag. 

The train slowed into the station, and Darcy tried to herd him toward the door stairs without drawing attention. 

"Where are we?" asked Loki as they stepped out onto the platform. 

Darcy looked around, not sure who to look for. It was dark, and still raining, so maybe their mystery help was waiting inside somewhere. 

"Seattle," she said. She could see Loki's next question before he even asked it. "We've still got thousands of miles to go. It's like, eight time zones away. At least."

Loki seemed less than impressed. "How far have we travelled?" He asked. 

Darcy started walking toward the first door she found, with Loki immediately grabbing her arm and following her. 

"You're hurting me," Darcy said forcefully as she tried to pull his hand away. She was still a little surprised when he loosened his grip and let her move his hand to hers. That way, at least he didn't look so obviously like he was trying to kidnap her. 

Satisfied that she wouldn't suffer any broken bones, she considered his question. "What? Since we got on the train? I don't know. Couple hundred miles maybe "

Loki sighed tiredly. Darcy agreed with his sentiment, but decided not to say anything about it. 

"Come on," she said instead as she pulled Loki into the station. "Let's look for our tour guide."


	21. Chapter 21

Darcy led Loki through the station, looking around for anyone who might have been there to pick them up. She made it about fifteen steps before getting distracted though, veering off to the left at the sight of the restrooms. 

"I need to get cleaned up," she said, pulling away from Loki. 

He grabbed her wrist as soon as she pulled away, squeezing so tightly she could imagine her bones grinding together. 

"Let go," she said, prying his fingers open. As soon as she was free of him, she rushed into the ladies', but of course Loki just followed right after her. 

"No, you can't come in here," Darcy said, trying to push him away. 

Loki glared at her. "Why?" He demanded. 

"Because it's against the rules," Darcy said, blocking the way in, as if he couldn't just shove past her if he wanted. 

"Whose rules?" He asked 

"Everyone's," Darcy said. She gave him another push and pointed to the men's room. "You're a guy. You go in there."

Before Loki could ask why again, Darcy escaped into the restrooms. Surprisingly, Loki didn't follow after her. Suspecting he would before too long, Darcy took the opportunity to pee quickly, and then washed all of Loki's blood off of her. She hadn't realised until she looked in the mirror just how much she looked like she'd been present at a murder scene. He'd got blood on her neck, and even up on her face, which she tried very hard to ignore, while at the same time scrutinising herself in the mirror to make sure she got every last drop off of her skin. When she finally finished and walked back out of the restroom, she was surprised to find Loki still waiting on outside, but not at all surprised to find him glaring around suspiciously. He turned his glare to her and she ignored it as she took his hand before he could crush her wrist again. 

"Come on," she said tiredly. 

Loki hadn't gone to clean himself up, and was still covered in blood, making Darcy eager to get out of sight as soon as possible. She led Loki down the length of the station, and then back outside before she finally found the blue plaid hoodie she'd been told to look for. The guy wearing it was standing against the wall, in a dark spot about ten feet from the door, totally not being suspicious or anything. 

"Are you Dennis?" She asked. 

The guy looked up from under his black ball cap and eyed the two of them. "Yeah," he said. He pointed at Loki and frowned. "What happened to him?" 

Darcy looked over at him and rolled her eyes. "He did that to himself. He's fine."

Dennis nodded and then jerked his head toward the parking lot. Without another word, he started walking off into the dark, startling Darcy. It took her a moment to realise that they were supposed to follow him. She tugged Loki along, leading him to the back of Dennis' SUV. She gave a brief consideration toward sitting in the front, but after casting a glance up to Loki, and seeing that he was probably going to pass out soon again, she helped him into the back and then climbed in next to him. 

"Don't want to sit up front?" Dennis asked. 

Darcy looked up at the front seat, but ultimately decided against it. "He gets kind of car sick sometimes. I'll stay back here with him," she said. 

Dennis watched the two of them in the mirror for a few seconds longer than necessary before starting the car, and Darcy found herself inching a bit closer to Loki. Loki cast her another suspicious glance, but Darcy ignored it, focusing instead on the creeping feeling in her chest that she was in more trouble than she knew. 

"Are you going back to sleep?" Darcy asked. 

Even in the dim, flickering light from the street lamps outside, she could see Loki struggling to stay awake again. 

"I need to rest," Loki admitted 

Darcy nodded. "I know. Go to sleep," she said. 

He didn't. He shifted in his seat and looked out the window as they pulled into traffic. "I require sustenance," he announced. 

Darcy looked up at him and remembered the prepaid card Tina had given her. "Here," she said fishing it out of her pocket. She leaned forward and passed it up to Dennis. "I don't know how much is on it. Not much, but it should cover at least him."

Dennis flipped the card over in his fingers and nodded. "Yeah, all right," he said. "There's a Jack in the Box just up the road a ways." 

As they continued up the street, Darcy looked around what she could see in the car. There was an archery arrow on the floor, poking out from under the seat. She picked it up carefully and looked at it, grimacing at its ultra sharp looking tip. 

"Do you hunt?" She asked nervously. 

Loki took the arrow from her and examined it, looking decidedly unimpressed with what he saw. 

"Yeah, sometimes," said Dennis. He pulled off the road and into the drive-through lane at the Jack in the Box. "We're going up to Ross Lake tomorrow to cross into Canada. I figure on my way back, I might try to score myself a deer or something."

Darcy frowned. "Oh."

He seemed weirdly relaxed for someone who was going to be spending his day smuggling people across the border. 

"You mentioned Canada before," Loki said, his eyes still on the arrow. 

"Yeah," said Darcy, not sure why she was embarrassed. "Guess I'm taking you there after all."

Loki smiled smugly, like an asshole. 

When they pulled up to order, Darcy ordered for both herself and Loki, deciding that they both needed one of Jack's stoner boxes. Loki didn't seem to know what to make of the order, and when he was handed the blue box a few minutes later, became even more confused and suspicious. 

"Does all your food come in boxes?" He asked. 

"Just the best stuff," Darcy chirped. 

She opened her box, and Loki followed her example, frowning at the mess of melted cheese and bacon that had spilled out a bit. 

"Eat," Darcy said, pulling one of the tacos from its paper sleeve. "It's delicious Earth food. Yum."

Loki seemed less than enthusiastic, and instead picked at his fries. Either his hunger got the best of him, or he decided it really was delicious, because as soon as he tried the fries, he dug into the rest like he hadn't eaten in a week. When he was finished with his, even having used his fries to mop up all the extra melts gooey cheese, he started stealing fries from Darcy's box. Figuring he probably needed it more than she did, she even gave him her second taco.


	22. Chapter 22

Darcy was more than a little surprised when they pulled off the main roads and started heading down a poorly-lit and badly-paved side street. She looked out the car windows, wondering if she and Loki hadn't taken a ride from the wrong person. Without meaning to, or even realising it, she moved a bit closer to Loki. He looked over at her, and maybe she was just imagining it, but he looked wary and suspicious, even in the dim light. 

"Uh. Where are we going?" Darcy asked. She could feel Loki tensing beside her, like he was ready to jump out the door at any moment. 

"You guys are staying with me tonight," said Dennis, turning onto an even shadier street. "We'll go up to Ross tomorrow to get you over the border."

Darcy looked nervously up to Loki, but he seemed suddenly preoccupied with the arrow he'd taken from her. 

"What kind of bird does this come from?" he asked as he ran his finger along the fletching. 

"Bird?" asked Darcy. She reached out to touch it, confused why he thought it came from a bird. "No, that's plastic. The whole thing's like, plastic or fibreglass or something."

Loki didn't seem to like that answer, but he didn't seem to like anything. That was just kind of his perpetual state, really. Annoyed and unimpressed with everything around him. It was no wonder his space pals flung him off the ship like they did Thor. That was probably their people's way of dealing with the ones they didn't like. They'd taken Thor back after a serious attitude adjustment. Maybe they'd take Loki back as well. Darcy could only hope. 

She looked back out the window as they pulled into an unlit car park. They might have been outside an apartment building, but it was hard to tell. Between the rain and the darkness, all Darcy could see was that she did not want to be there. She nudged against Loki and nodded out the window when he looked at her. He looked out as well, turning a familiar frown at what he saw. 

"This is where you live?" he asked. 

Darcy wanted to start counting down before Loki called Dennis a slave and got them murdered. She found herself hoping that she was still useful enough to Loki that he'd want to defend her. Then she found herself realising how fucked they were if she was starting to look to Loki for help. 

"Yep," said Dennis as he got out of the car. He didn't wait around for them, so Darcy hurried to grab their bags and try to push Loki out of the car. 

Loki hesitated more than what was becoming usual before finally stepping out into the rain as well. Darcy tried to hand him his bag, but he ignored it, making her carry both. Slinging both over one shoulder, Darcy reached out to grab onto the hem of Loki's T-shirt, just in case he did try to run off and leave her with Dennis. Loki looked down and scowled at her, and reached down for her hand. At first, she thought he was just going to pull her off of him, but he held on, and didn't even act like he was trying to break her hand this time. 

Dennis' apartment was small and kind of dingy, in a way that clearly suggested he lived very much alone. There was a tiny couch in the middle of the room, with tables on either side. They were both covered in old beer cans and food wrappers, with some of the mess spilling over to the floor. What little she could see of the kitchen was in the same state. 

"You guys want anything to drink?" Dennis asked. "Or smoke? I don't have much else."

"Clearly," Loki said, picking through the mess by the television. 

"Actually, I'm kind of tired," Darcy lied quickly, hoping to distract Dennis from Loki's scathing comment. "It's been a long day, and we could both use some sleep, if that's cool."

Dennis nodded slowly, but brought over three cans of Bud anyway. "You sure?" he asked, offering them out. 

Loki looked at it and leaned away warily. At first, Darcy wondered if he thought it might be poison, until she remembered his terrifying coughing fit after trying Pepsi.   
"No, we're just gonna go to bed," she said. She looked over at the tiny couch, not really looking forward to sleeping on it. There weren't even any blankets, but she didn't want to ask for one either. 

Dennis gave them both a squinty look before nodding and stepping over to the bedroom, taking all three beers with him. "All right. Suit yourself," he said. He disappeared into the bedroom, leaving Loki and Darcy alone. 

At once, Darcy claimed the couch, stretching out along it. It was short, but it was wide, more like a giant chair than a couch. Loki tried to crawl up alongside her as well, but she blocked him and shooed him away. 

"No, girls get the couch. You sleep on the floor. That's the rules," she said. 

Loki glared at her. 

"Whose rules?" he demanded, towering over her in a very real reminder of just how big he was. 

"Everyone's rules," Darcy said. 

"You're lying," Loki said. 

He looked like he was about to pull her right off the couch, but Darcy was not even about to sleep on the floor. "Prove it," she said. 

Loki grit his teeth and sat down heavily on the floor. It made Darcy wonder just how old he was. He was obviously pretty damn ancient, as far as Earth was concerned if he really was _that_ Loki, but he really acted like a grumpy teenager who wasn't getting his way. 

"This man means to betray us," Loki said suddenly. It wasn't at all what Darcy expected to hear, but for some strange reason, she felt a little better for it. If an impending sense of doom could be described as better than rising panic. 

"You think so too, huh?" she asked. 

"We should go. Now. We shouldn't be here," Loki said. He reached down to scratch off the dried blood from his chest, frowning at it when it caught under his nails. 

"Loki, if we leave, I have no idea where we'd go. I don't know this area, or anybody in it. We need someone to get us into Canada," Darcy told him. She knew he was right, though. She'd had a strange feeling about Dennis ever since they got into his car. 

Loki sighed deeply and lay back on the floor. He looked up at the ceiling, silent for a long while. Long enough that Darcy thought he'd fallen asleep until he spoke again. 

"If this realm doesn't kill me first, I'm going to raze it," he said with a steady calm that could only mean he was completely serious. 

"Please don't say things like that," Darcy said. "You're scary when you talk like that."

Loki lifted his head just enough to cast her a curious glance. 

"You would rather have me lie than face an unpleasant truth," Loki said. It wasn't a question at all, and he didn't even try to make it sound like one. "Do you not think it would be better if the cruelty of this world were wiped out entirely?"

"You can't erase cruelty with cruelty," Darcy argued. 

Loki made a sound that almost sounded like a laugh. "So what? You intend to erase it with kind words? Empty platitudes? Your race has forgotten its place."

"And you're going to what?" asked Darcy, unable to believe she was even having this conversation. "Put us back where you think we belong? Is that why we're going all the way across the world?"

Loki thought on that for a moment. Or at least, pretended to. "No, we're going to Tórshavn to get me off this festering realm." 

Darcy wanted to gag. "I can't believe I'm helping you."

Loki smirked. "As you've made a point of so frequently reminding me, you haven't got a choice," he said. 

Darcy fell back onto the couch. "But why destroy an entire planet just because a few people are assholes?" she asked. 

"If it's only the work of a few, then why has the rest of humanity not stepped forward to put an end to it?" Loki asked calmly. "Are you certain it's not the other way round? An entire race of cruel, savage beasts with few exceptions?"

"Well. I mean." Darcy didn't have an answer. Suddenly all she could think about was every time she'd ever heard about some young kid killed by police because he was black, or a mutant, or holding a candy bar. And there would always be the memorial ceremony, and promises to fix a broken system, but then a week later, it all happened again in another city. 

"You know it just as well as I," Loki said. She could hear the smugness in his voice, and wanted to hit him for it. 

Darcy sighed deeply, resisting the urge to grab a lamp and break it on Loki's face. 

"Go to bed," she said instead. "You need the rest."

She thought she heard Loki laughing again, and rolled over to put her back to him. Maybe if she was lucky, she could get a bit of sleep as well.


	23. Chapter 23

It was becoming a strange habit to have not realised that she'd fallen asleep until something woke her suddenly. A strange habit she wasn't comfortable with having, but when she was jarred awake suddenly, her mind wasn't anywhere near that topic. It was focused on the strange sounds coming from Dennis's room. Sounds like he was moving stuff around at oh-god-o'clock in the morning. Darcy sat up quickly and looked over to Dennis' room and the yellow light coming from under the door. For a few moments, she tried to convince herself she was just being paranoid, but either she was getting worse at lying to herself, or Dennis was letting off some serious creeper vibes. One more weird scrape from Dennis' room, and Loki sat straight up and stared at the bedroom door as well. 

Or maybe he just wasn't as passed out as Darcy had thought. 

"What's he doing?" Darcy asked quietly. 

Loki glared at the door for a few moments longer before getting up onto the sofa. Darcy started to protest, but Loki held his hand over her mouth as he settled down between her and the back of the sofa. 

"How badly do we need him?" Loki asked quietly in her ear. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth, leaving Darcy wondering who would be the worst option to get stuck with. 

At least Loki had proven reasonably manageable. Dennis was a complete unknown, and ultimately the bigger risk. Even with Loki pressed against her, holding her against his chest to keep her from running away, he still seemed like the safer option. 

"I don't think we can get lucky again," Darcy whispered. 

Loki's grip tightened briefly, but luckily he seemed to be getting the hint that humans were fragile and not to be squeezed. 

"If you did your vanishing thing, how far could you go?" Darcy asked him. 

Again, she felt him tense up around her. 

"Not far enough," he said. 

"How badly do you need me?" Darcy asked before she could stop herself. As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't, but there was no way to take it back so she just ploughed on. "I just... I just want to hear it from you. I need to know if you're just going to kill me when you're done with me."

Loki made a sound that seemed almost amused. Still holding her down, he used his free hand to pet her hair. It was weirdly invasive and violating, and somehow even worse than being held down by him. Darcy closed her eyes tightly and waited for him to just get it over with, but he seemed content to just pet her hair. 

"Why? Do you intend to turn on me?" he asked, his mouth so close to her ear, she could feel the vibrations of his voice in her skin. 

"No," she said, having to force the word out in a terrified squeak. 

"Why not?"

Darcy wasn't sure what the right answer was, and was too afraid of giving the wrong answer to speak. Loki apparently found her abject terror funny, because he laughed and kept on petting her hair. 

"You are far more useful to me alive than dead. Why should I want to kill you?" he asked, still whispering but weirdly casual despite it.

Darcy wanted to cry, but she was too scared to manage even that. "Please stop," she choked out. 

To her surprise, Loki did. He pulled his hand away from her head, and even loosened his grip around her. Darcy almost tried to dart away and put as much distance between them as possible, but a loud scrape and clacking sound from Dennis' room made her freeze in place. Darcy could feel herself trembling, and was pissed that she wasn't even sure which creep scared her more. 

"How useful am I?" she asked again. 

Loki took a long moment to answer, but at least he didn't start petting her again. "Useful enough," he decided. 

Darcy had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but she couldn't bring herself to question him further. She knew what the next question would have been, but suddenly she couldn’t find her voice.

“Sleep,” Loki said, settling down beside her. 

“I can’t,” Darcy told him.

Loki seemed relaxed enough that Darcy thought she might have been able to get away if she was fast enough. She told herself that the reason she didn’t try was because the floor was way nasty and too gross to sleep on.

“Then keep watch,” Loki said. Completely unfairly, because Darcy did not want to do that either.

So far, her entire acquaintance with Loki had been defined by a complete lack of sleep, bruises she never wanted to try to explain, and being constantly felt up.

“Hands to yourself,” she grumbled, trying to push Loki’s hand away from her. Of course, with the way they were crammed up against one another on the sofa, anywhere his hand was, he was touching her somewhere. Like everything else, she decided to just ignore that as well, while at the same time trying to ignore the psychopath serial killer in the next room.

For the next few hours, she drifted in and out of sleep, never managing to actually stay asleep for long. She finally decided she didn’t want to sleep at all when she realised that the lump snoring into her ear was also popping the biggest boner ever, and it was digging right into her thigh. Trying not to gag, Darcy slammed her elbow back into Loki’s ribs and sat up quickly.

“Augh, that’s enough of that,” she said.

Loki groaned and sat up slowly, looking at her like he had no idea why she’d just slugged him. Darcy wasn’t buying it for a second.

The clock on the cable box said it was just after 5:30, which meant that Darcy was in for another day of hell. More importantly, it was a cable box, which meant there was cable TV to be watched. She managed to find the remote in all the junk on the end table and turned on the TV, hitting the mute button at exactly the right time to blat out an indecipherable noise that could wake the dead, before everything went silent. She slowly turned up the volume, finding the perfect balance between not waking everyone else up and still being able to hear. While Loki tried to go back to sleep, Darcy flipped through the channels, finding nothing but infomercials, regular commercials, and shows about Jesus. 

“Wait.” Something caught her attention three seconds after she flipped away from the channel, so she flipped back until she found it again. Not that it was hard to find again. Seattle’s own early morning news was playing security camera footage on loop, while the blond newscaster who was way too alert for just after 5:30 in the morning warned residents of a pair of dangerous criminals wanted by federal police.

And wouldn’t you just know it, the security camera footage showed Loki and Darcy wandering around a bus terminal, looking for their driver. They even had zoomed-in and badly-enhanced stills to show everyone.

“Oh, fuck,” Darcy said. She slapped Loki frantically, not even caring where she hit him, so long as he woke up. “Wake up wake up wake up, we’re fucked,” she tried not to shout.

Loki clumsily slapped back as he sat up again. “What are you screeching about now?” he asked.

Before Darcy could answer, Dennis threw open his bedroom door and glared out to the two of them.

“What’s going on?” he asked, still wearing what he’d been wearing the night before.

Darcy pointed frantically at the television. “We have a serious problem.”

Dennis looked at the television, and had he been holding a cup in his hand, Darcy was positive he’d have dropped it.

“Fuck. Yes we do. We have to leave now.” He stepped back into his room just long enough to grab his shoes and rushed back out. “Come on. We have to get out of town while it’s still dark.”

Darcy mashed the power button on the remote as she jumped to her feet and gathered all their things. Suddenly, Loki didn’t seem tired at all, and he even took the bags from her in their rush to leave before SHIELD managed to track them down. They both wound up just carrying their shoes out with them, walking in their socks across a soaked parking lot, but whatever. They had clean socks, and they could put their shoes on in the car. As soon as the doors were unlocked, Darcy and Loki both scrambled into the back seat, again leaving the front one next to Dennis empty. Darcy wasn’t even thinking about why; just that she’d ridden in the back with Loki on the way there, so it seemed like the place to ride on their way out.

She expected Dennis to peel out in a screech of tyres and an over-stressed transmission, but he left calm as ever, as if he was just going to work like everyone else at that time of morning. As they drove through the streets, Darcy kept looking out the windows for police cars or giant, black SUVs, but she saw surprisingly few of either. And those she did see didn’t seem to be interested in them at all.

“Where are we going?” Loki asked as they merged onto the freeway.

“Canada, bro,” Dennis said, either missing the finer points of the problem, or being deliberately difficult.

“Yeah, but uh. We don’t have passports. And are kind of wanted, you know?” Darcy reminded him. “How are we getting to Canada?”

“Ross Lake,” Dennis said.

Loki looked over to Darcy, but she had no idea what that meant either. She knew what a lake was, but had no idea if Ross Lake was a tiny little pond, or the size of a small sea. 

“You expect us to swim?” asked Loki.

Dennis sighed, like he was the one being dragged around. “No, we’re taking a boat to a couple miles off the border. Then we’re hiking over the border to meet with your ride.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Darcy, looking down at their wet socks. “Sorry, it’s just this is our first experience with human trafficking. We wanted to know how it works.”

Dennis made a sound that was almost like a laugh, but not really. “I do it all the time. It’s easy.”

Easy, right. Easy like everything else had been so far. Graduating college without dropping out had been easier than this.


	24. Chapter 24

Darcy watched out the windows as they cruised along the freeway, every flash of red or blue looking like a cop, only taking her eyes off the road when Loki leaned against her tiredly. She looked over and started to push him off, but stopped when his hair got in her face. 

"Loki, where's your hat?" she asked. 

Loki shrugged against her. "How should I know?" he asked. 

Darcy sighed, something just on the verge of breaking into tears. It wasn't Loki's fault, except it totally was. Everything was his damn fault, even if it was victim blaming. But he started the whole mess in the first place. The least he could do was keep track of his fucking hat. 

"All right. Here," said Darcy trying to stay calm. She reached for her bag and dug around the bottom of it. Eventually, she came back up with a hair tie that was supposed to be for her. But with his big patch of missing hair, Loki needed it more. 

She reached over without even bothering to ask first and tried to find a way to pull his hair down over the missing patch and tie it into a ponytail. The first part worked. The second part, not so much. Loki's hair was too short to pull into a ponytail at all, even without having to try to use it to cover the side of his head. 

"What are you doing? Get off," he said, trying to slap her away. It felt kind of good to turn the tables on him, in a petty, vindictive kind of way. Darcy wasn't usually that kind of person, but Loki seemed to bring out the worst in everyone. 

"Your hair is all fucked up. We have to fix it somehow," Darcy said, reaching for his hair again. 

Loki slapped her hands away and leaned away from her. He glared at her for a few moments, but his resolve crumbled quickly. 

"Fine." Sighing, he rolled his eyes and shook his head. It probably would have had more effect if he wasn't missing a huge chunk of hair on the left side of his head, but that never stopped him before. 

He rubbed his hands together and then quickly feathered out and teased his hair, shaking it into a huge mess. Once he was finished with whatever he was doing, Loki leaned back in his seat and glared at Darcy some more. 

"There," he said flatly. 

"Okay," Darcy said slowly, not sure what teasing out his hair was supposed to do. She reached out for it again, stopping short when she found the missing patch completely filled in again. 

"What the hell? Why didn't you do that two days ago?" she asked. 

Loki didn't say anything. He turned his head to look at her, and even without much light coming in from outside, the dark circles under his eyes stood out starkly. He needed rest, and Darcy knew it. But here he was, doing all his impossible magic again, even though it always seemed to make him even worse. 

"Does it hurt?" Darcy asked carefully. 

Loki closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "If I say yes, will you let me sleep?" he asked. 

Darcy didn't respond. She knew Loki would never get better enough to really be useful unless he got the rest he was constantly being denied. Eating nothing but junk food probably wasn't helping either. Hell, for all Darcy knew, all the human junk food was actively making him worse. Darcy sat back and watched dreary, dark Seattle pass by outside and envied Loki's ability to fall asleep almost instantly. After several years of college, Darcy thought she knew what exhaustion was, but all that time, she had been wrong. She had not slept a full night since her personal Space Viking literally fell into her life, and she was too worried and nervous to even try to get a nap in while she had the chance. A problem Loki obviously didn't share, since he was already snoring again. 

They pulled off the highway again, back down into another neighbourhood that couldn't have possibly been Canada already. She felt bad about it, because he was obviously so miserable, but Darcy started to nudge Loki awake again. While she struggled with that, Dennis started wrestling with his phone, eventually managing to make a call. 

"Yeah, hey. Get ready. We're leaving early," he said. There was a pause before Dennis told the other person to turn on the news, and then hung up. 

"Where are we going?" Darcy asked, trying not to sound nervous and failing. 

"Picking up the boat, unless you want to swim to Canada," Dennis said. 

"No," said Darcy. She cast a nervous look over to Loki. He looked like he was debating between going back to sleep and diving out the door. 

A few more turns and detours into a safe-looking neighbourhood later, they pulled up in front of a house with its own yard and garage, and a boat parked in front. Not some big, safe looking powerboat, but a tiny metal thing with a painted red stripe, and the motor tacked to the back. Dennis hopped out of the car to meet the guy that was just coming out the front door, leaving Darcy and Loki alone in the car. 

They quickly hooked up the boat to the back of Dennis’ car, scraping metal against metal and making everything lurch back and forth. Loki sat up straight and went for the door, having to take a few moments to work out how it opened. 

“No, wait,” Darcy said, grabbing his arm before he could get out.

Loki turned to glare at her. “We’re finding our own way,” he said.

Darcy reached over to close the door. “What do you want to do? Walk to Canada?” If Loki hadn’t been from outer fucking space, and actually knew how Earth worked, she might have considered it. But he was from outer fucking space, and he acted like it.

“How far could it be?” asked Loki.

Darcy had no idea, which was exactly the point. She shrugged dramatically and pulled Loki more toward the middle of the seat. “I don’t know, but we obviously need a boat. And this guy’s got one, so we’ll go with him.”

Dennis and his friend both got into the front of the car and quickly shut the doors. Before everyone was even settled, Dennis started the engine and got the hell out of there.

“Everything all right?” Dennis’ friend asked.

Before Loki could answer, Darcy clamped her grip down on his arm and nodded. “Yeah, just kinda scared, and don’t really know what we’re doing,” she said.

She could practically feel Loki roll his eyes.

“Well, this is the easy part,” said boat guy. “I’m gonna take you up the lake, which is kind of closed right now, because the water’s low and ice cold. I’m dropping you guys off a few miles from the border, and then you’ll hike across with Dennis.”

Darcy looked over at Dennis and nodded. “Kay. It—it doesn’t sound very safe.”

Boat guy laughed. “No, it’s not. Next time, try to wait until summer to piss off the government. There are about a dozen more ways to cross the border, then.”

“Why does it matter?” asked Loki. 

It was Dennis’ turn to laugh. “Because it’s like he said. Everything’s closed right now.”

For about two seconds, Darcy thought Loki would let it go. But he didn’t. “How does a lake become closed? Who has that authority?”

“The government, dude,” said boat guy.

Dennis looked back over the seat at Loki for a few seconds. “You’re really selling this space alien thing, aren’t you?”

Darcy hadn’t mentioned that part to Dennis at all. She assumed he knew because whoever had contacted him within the Rising Tide had told him, but it still wasn’t really information she thought he should have been flinging around with someone else in the car with them. 

Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Darcy changed the subject. “Who are we meeting when we get across the border?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” said Dennis. “There are a few people who meet us, and I wasn’t told who to look for.”

“That… Wow.” Maybe Loki had the right idea after all. “Sorry, this is all super weird and not how I planned on spending my week. I wouldn’t even be here at all if this asshole hadn’t crash landed in the desert and got into my car.”

“You invited me in,” Loki pointed out.

Darcy waved her hand at his face to shut him up. “And you’re not talking right now.”

Boat guy turned round in his seat and looked at both of them for the first time. “Wait. This is really some kind of Roswell thing?” he asked. He looked over to Dennis, and then back to Darcy. “Why Canada? What’s there?”

Darcy shrugged dramatically. “Our ride to Norway or whatever. That’s where he needs to go.”

“It’s not in Norway. It’s on an island,” Loki said.

“Same thing,” Darcy said, knowing that it wasn’t anything close to the same thing. At least Loki didn’t argue with her.

Boat guy eventually turned back around in his seat, and the car fell into an uneasy silence. Darcy went back to watching out the windows for any sign of police lights or big, black SUVs following them.


	25. Chapter 25

They drove further and further out of the city, hitting straight up wilderness by the time the sun started rising properly. They followed a winding mountain road through tall trees and along terrifying drops while snow fell outside. Every time the boat trailer they were towing hit a larger-than-usual bump or rocked in the wind, it made the whole car feel like it was going to fall over. 

Darcy leaned over Loki to look out at the drop beyond the very narrow shoulder and guard rail that wouldn't stop a Smart Car from going over the edge, let alone a giant Jeep towing a boat. 

"So... You'll do your bamf thing if we start to fall off to our certain deaths, right?" Darcy asked. 

Loki sighed tiredly. "Do you expect me to take you with me?" he asked. 

Darcy wasn't sure if he was joking or not, and was too tired to figure it out. The boat behind them lurched again, and without thinking about what she was doing, Darcy threw herself against Loki's side and wrapped her arms around him. She was going to make damn sure he took her with him if he went anywhere. 

"Get off of me," Loki said, trying to sound threatening while being way too tired to pull it off. 

"No. You're taking me with you," Darcy told him. 

Loki rolled his eyes and tried to push her away, but Darcy held on tight, digging her fingers into his shirt. Eventually, Loki gave up and flopped limply back into his seat. 

"I hate you," he muttered. 

"Good," said Darcy. 

Soon, the steep drops became not so steep, and eventually leveled out all together. The road followed along the banks of a wide river, until Dennis turned right and drove over a long, low bridge. Darcy looked out at the water and all the exposed junk peeking up from the surface, wondering how high it got during the spring and summer. 

Across the river, they started to climb again, this time with the steep drops on the other side of the road. Darcy was almost able to handle it, until Dennis turned off the main road and down a narrow little path that was almost certainly not open to winter traffic. As they crossed over a dam, Darcy tried to look everywhere at once, looking out for rangers or cops or big black SUVs. They got across without being seen by anyone, and followed the road along the bank of a lake. The water was low, even on the lake side of the dam, with what definitely looked like ice along the shore. 

"So, on a scale of one to government shut downs, how stupid is this plan of ours?" Darcy asked. 

"I don't do winter crossings very often," said Paul. "It's pretty stupid."

"Awesome," Darcy muttered. 

They pulled off the road to a large, sandy outcropping. Darcy had never seen a boat launch before, but she imagined they must look like large, sandy outcroppings at the side of lakes. Dennis turned the car around and backed the boat into the water, somehow managing not to buckle the trailer. Paul hopped out of the car and started doing something loud and scrapey outside, making everything lurch and lunge back and forth again. 

Finally, it all stopped, and Dennis pulled away to park back up away from the water. 

"Okay. If you want to back out, now's the time," he said. 

Darcy looked back out at the lake, and then over at Loki, who had somehow managed to go back to sleep. She pushed against him a few times, waking him up and making him open the door. 

"Don't have much of a choice," she reasoned. She grabbed their bags and followed Loki outside. It was colder than she expected, and she was so not dressed appropriately for mountain winter weather, or boating. She needed about two more coats for both of those. 

Dennis locked up the car and followed them over to the boat, which Paul had helpfully beached in the sand so they wouldn't have to get into the freezing cold lake water. Dennis helped Darcy in, with Loki climbing aboard like there was nothing at all unusual with what they were doing. Then again, Space Vikings probably spent all their time on Space Oceans, in their Space Longboats. It was probably the first thing since crash landing in the desert that Loki actually understood. 

After quickly looking over everything, Dennis nodded at Paul and turned back to the car. He opened the rear hatch and pulled out his bow and a bunch of deadly-looking arrows with razor-sharp steel tips, and slid them into a cheap quiver. Darcy watched Dennis with wide eyes, inching closer to Loki in case they had to start dodging arrows all of a sudden. Loki glanced over at Darcy, and as Dennis climbed into the boat, Loki nudged Darcy to the other side. They had some distance between them and Dennis' murder weapon, but it still didn't feel like enough. They wouldn't have enough space between them until they were in Canada and Dennis was still in Washington. 

Dennis and Paul used the wooden oars to cast off from the banks before Paul started the outboard motor and started pointing the boat in the right direction. He went slowly at first, looking out over the bow into the water below, probably trying not to run over any submerged trees or lake monsters. 

"So, we just have to get across this, and then we're in Canada?" asked Darcy. She thought she could see the far bank from where they were, but wasn't sure if the lake didn't just wind around the mountains. 

"This? No, this is Diablo," Paul said as he gave the motor more juice and opened up the throttle. "We have to carry the boat over to Ross from here."

Darcy looked out at the snow that was starting to fall a little more heavily. "What? Carry it? For how far?"

No-one ever told her that getting into Canada would be such a workout. 

"About a mile," Paul said. 

Darcy flapped her arms in despair, wishing someone had told her that sooner. She might have tried to actually sleep the night before. 

As they moved faster across the water, the wind kicked up and bit at Darcy's face and whipped at her hair. She turned into Loki's side and buried her face into his shirt, trying to keep most of the wind off of her. The uneven rock of the boat was already starting to get to her, but she ignored the rising sourness in her belly as best she could. Every now and then, the boat would jump up into the air and slam down so hard it made her teeth clack together and every bone in her body crunch. She looked up to see Loki looking into the wind with an almost amused look on his face, apparently not even noticing the cold. 

The lake slowly narrowed into a river, with high, steep walls of mountain on either side. Paul kept the boat as close to the center of the river as he could, slowing only to take the boat around corners. After what felt like hours of rough water and hard wind, Paul slowed down and pulled the boat up to another boat launch. There was still plenty of river to go, but this was apparently the end of the line. Paul beached the boat in the sand again, letting them step onto the bank without getting wet. Once everyone was out, it became a moot point anyway, because he and Dennis pulled the little metal boat out of the water and brought half the river with it. 

"Come on. Everybody help," Dennis said. 

Darcy's hands were frozen into useless claws that didn't even want to try to grip the side of the boat. She tried to hold on, doing her best not to let her shivering make her drop her part of the boat. It was heavy, but not as heavy as she'd thought it would be. If she wasn't freezing, it might have actually been kind of easy to hold onto. 

The only thing that made her feel better was that Dennis and Paul both seemed to be having the same trouble. Every few seconds, one of them would slip and the boat would drop dangerously. 

"Put it down," Loki grumbled. He let go of his end, and suddenly the whole thing felt about 100 times heavier. They all tried to control the boat's fall to the ground, still holding up the stern to keep from breaking the motor. Loki emptied out the boat of all the oars and bows and everything else, tossing them carelessly to the side, before lifting the boat over his shoulder and carrying on up the gravel trail alone. 

"Yeah, that makes sense," Darcy said, not even surprised anymore. 

She picked up the oars and followed after Loki, while the other two gaped for a few more moments.


	26. Chapter 26

The mile-long hike wound up being a mile uphill on loose gravel beneath a growing layer of snow. Darcy hated the snow back home, she hated the snow in New Mexico, and she hated the snow in Washington or wherever the fuck they were. The cuffs of her jeans were soaked, with the ice cold water seeping further and further up her legs. No-one told her there would be snow or hikes or freezing lakes. By the time they reached the dam, Darcy started to wish the Feds would show up, because their prison cells were probably warm and dry, at least. 

When they got to the next boat launch, Loki made Dennis and Paul put the boat where they wanted it while he started to wander off. He sat in the snow, looking off into the distance with those dark circles under his eyes again. Darcy stood in one place, huddling in on herself to try to stay as warm as possible, and really not looking forward to getting back in that boat. 

"We should camp," Loki said suddenly. 

"We don't have the time," Dennis said. 

"She's freezing. We need to camp." It took Darcy an embarrassing few moments to realise Loki was talking about her. He hadn't shown a single hint of caring, but apparently he drew the line at watching her freeze to death. That was good to know. Kind of. 

"We don't have the time," Dennis repeated as he reloaded the boat. "We have to go now. If we light a fire out here, someone will see the smoke and call border patrol."

Darcy wanted to say that it was fine, and that she didn't need a fire anyway, but she couldn't even find her voice. Loki sighed and muttered something that was probably a space swear as he got up out of the snow. As he walked over to Darcy, he pulled his hoodie off and roughly put it on Darcy, trying to force it over her arms. She tried to complain and fight him, because he really would freeze in just a T-shirt and wet jeans, but her body wanted the extra layers more than she wanted to argue. 

"It's fine," she finally managed to stutter out. 

Loki didn't argue with her. Instead he just picked her right up off the ground and carried her over to the boat, seating her toward the back. He sat down next to her and glared at everything while Dennis and Paul got everything sorted and pushed off from the bank. 

This lake was bigger than the first, wide and long like a gigantic river, with mountains on either side. The wind was getting even worse, blowing snow everywhere and making the water so rough, Paul couldn't even run the boat at full speed. They never got a good rhythm, with the boat constantly being thrown up by a wave, and then crashing down on another one. 

All the while, Loki held Darcy close to him and glared at the other two, never saying a word along the entire ride. Finally, after what might have been years, the boat finally slowed and they moved closer to shore. Darcy could feel Loki tense next to her, but she was just glad they were finally done. 

"Hey, fuckwit. What are you doing?" Dennis asked suddenly. 

Darcy looked up, not sure who he was talking to. She followed Loki's glare to Paul, wondering what she was missing. 

"It's another mile north," Dennis said. 

Paul turned the boat against the waves. "Not this time. We're getting off here."

Dennis nocked an arrow and drew back the string. Darcy knew for sure she was about to die, and couldn't do anything about it. Every muscle in her body seized up, and all she could do was stare at the arrow pointing at her. 

Loki shoved her toward the front of the boat and Dennis, prompting her body to finally react. She was surprised when Dennis didn't keep his aim on her, and only realised once she was clutching to the prow that his aim had been on Paul the entire time. She was just in the way. 

"How much did they offer you?" Dennis asked. "Last I heard, the bid was half a million."

Paul looked over his shoulder at the bank and frowned impatiently.

Loki didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed one of the oars and slammed the handle into Paul's face. Paul reeled back and landed on the outboard, gunning the engine and pulling on the prop. The entire boat lurched awkwardly as a giant wave struck the side, throwing Darcy overboard. 

"Damnit to hell!" Loki shouted. 

He jumped in after her, struggling to keep her head above the surface even in the shallow water. The waves came one after the next, and even though Darcy knew that she had to start swimming and get to shore, she couldn't. Nothing about her body worked, and she couldn't even breathe the air that was right in front of her face. Everything was starting to go grey around her, and even after Loki somehow got her back into the boat, she still couldn't breathe or move. Somewhere in the distance, she recognised more fighting and splashing, but she couldn't see what it was. 

"We need to camp. Now," Loki demanded. 

The boat started moving again at full speed, despite the waves.

"There's a car waiting for us at the border," Dennis said. 

Loki started trying to pull off both the hoodies Darcy was wearing, which she really knew she should have been fighting against. 

"She won't survive that long, and I need her alive. If she dies, she's useless to me," he said. 

"Let me try something," Dennis said. "We might get arrested."

The boat slammed hard against the water, and if Darcy's jaw hadn't already been clamped shut, she knew distantly that she would have probably bitten off her tongue by now. Even through the numbing cold, she could feel every impact in her chest and spine, like she was going to explode from the inside out. 

"She's like me, right? Human?" Dennis asked. 

"Is all of your race this fragile?" Loki asked in return. He pulled Darcy's hair away from her face and wrung it out. 

Suddenly, the boat turned again and everything slammed forward. Loki picked her up and carried her to shore. "Bring the bags," he commanded before carrying her across ground that didn't feel level or solid. 

"Thought you were coming from the other way," a new voice said. Darcy tried to look up, but Loki was holding her so she faced his chest. All she could see was wet T-shirt. 

"She fell in. We couldn't make the hike," Dennis said, panting. 

"We need to get all that off her. There are blankets in the back," the new voice said. Darcy thought it sounded female. 

She was put in the back of the car as she fought against the urge to drift off to sleep. She was so tired and so cold, and all she wanted to do was sleep, but her creepy pet space alien was undressing her and she didn't want him too, but she couldn't do anything about it. 

"No, I'm cold," she complained. 

"Did you fall in too?" the new person asked as Darcy was covered in a heavy wool blanket. 

"I'm fine," Loki said. 

"He went in after her," Dennis said. 

Darcy could hear some more shuffling around as she tried to wrap the blanket even closer to her, but it didn't have any warmth in it anywhere. Blankets were supposed to be warm, but this one was cold, like everything else. 

Suddenly, there was a lot of rocking back and forth and doors slamming, followed by the very distinctive feeling of tyres failing to get traction on loose sand, before finally finding grip and lunging everything forward. As they bounced down the road to the sound of the car heater, Darcy was manhandled again until she was sitting up and leaning against someone. She fell asleep before she found out who it was.


	27. Chapter 27

Darcy sensed, rather than felt, that she was next to someone. She tried to wake up, hoping she could make sense of what was going on, but every time she tried she drifted off again. 

Someone was talking. Someone angry, and someone not angry. Whatever they were talking about, it was only making the angry person even angrier, but Darcy couldn't hear any of the words. 

They were moving. It wasn't on rough ground, and it felt fast, but that didn't give her much. 

"We're gonna stop off and hope," someone said. 

Hope? For what? And why did they have to stop?

Slowly, Darcy became acutely aware of the chill. She was freezing, and still kind of wet, and not wearing anything aside from a scratchy blanket. The person next to her didn't seem to be much better. Darcy tried to ask where their clothes were, but she barely got the first few sounds out again before falling back out of consciousnesses. 

Darcy woke again to the sensation of someone messing with her hair. No, not just her hair. Her entire head. This time she managed to open her eyes to find her vision blocked by something over her face as she was being jostled about. 

"What?" she asked. 

She managed to reach up and tried to pull whatever it was off her face, which at the same time stopped her from being shoved around. 

It was a towel, she realised. Loki was very roughly trying to dry her hair. Or possibly smother her. 

"You stupid cow," he said, going back to his angry work. 

Darcy wanted to be indignant, but barely managed a huff at him. 

"Hey," she said. She managed to push him away again, realising as she did that she was still naked. Loki, at least, was wearing clothes again. "Why you calling me names?"

"How could you be stupid enough to let yourself fall in?" Loki spat. 

He sat back away from her and glowered , still holding the towel that looked brand new. Darcy snugged herself up in the blanket and tried to remember what happened. 

"What?" she asked again. 

Loki rolled his eyes dramatically and threw his hands into the air. Darcy looked at him for a few long moments, not sure what to say. When she couldn't figure it out, she looked past him and realised they were stopped in a parking lot. 

"Hey, where are we?" she asked, hoping no-one got a look at her while she was barely covered up. 

"I don't know. Some horrible place called Hope," Loki grumbled. 

For some reason, Darcy felt like she knew that already, but she wasn't sure why. She looked around. They were outside a supermarket of some sort, the driver of the old SUV they were in nowhere to be seen.

"I'm really cold," she said, not having anything else to say. "Is there a heater?"

Loki sat up like he suddenly remembered something and reached over into the front seats to grab a shopping bag. He pulled two heavy pairs of pyjama pants out and handed them both to Darcy, followed by a long-sleeved shirt and a new hoodie, and a huge pair of wool socks. Darcy didn't even have to ask. She managed to get both pairs of pyjamas on without flashing the world, but the shirt wound up being more difficult. And of course, Loki couldn't even be bothered to look away. 

"Enough of this. I've already seen it, and it's nothing spectacular," he said as she tried to keep the blanket closed around her and pull the shirt on over her head. 

He helped by grabbing the blanket. Darcy had just enough time to clasp her arms over her chest before he pulled hard on it and pulled it over her head so she had her own personal blanket fort. 

"Thanks," she said flatly. 

She got the shirt on and then came out from under the blanket so she could put the hoodie on as well. Even with the layers, she still felt chilled straight to the bone, so she wrapped back up in the blanket and pulled the hood over her head. While she sat and shivered some more, the front door opened and a woman sat in the driver's seat before passing something back. 

"Here, hold onto this, sweetie" she said. 

It was a hot water bottle -- the old, red rubber kind -- and Darcy took it eagerly. It was too hot to hold against her skin, but felt amazing against her stomach with her shirt as a barrier. Next, she was handed a steaming paper cup, which she assumed would have coffee or tea. Instead, she found very hot chicken soup. 

"Thank you," she said, daring to take a sip and burning her tongue. She decided she'd just hold onto it for a while. 

"How are you feeling?" the owner of the car asked. 

"Cold," Darcy answered honestly. She tried to take another sip of her soup, but it was still way too hot. 

The helpful woman in the front made herself even more helpful by turning on the engine and starting up the heater again. Darcy let herself lean up against Loki, hoping to leech off some of his warmth as well, but he was still stone cold. 

"You're freezing," Darcy said, looking up at him. He wore only the new shirt he'd been given, and one pair of pyjamas. The rest was stuffed on the floor by his feet. He hadn't ebpven put his socks on. "Put your sweater on."

"I'm fine," Loki protested. 

Darcy was still too miserable to argue. She sat against him anyway and held her cup up to her face, letting the steam roll over her cheeks. As she enjoyed it, Loki suddenly pulled the cup away and took a drink.

"Hey," Darcy chastised as she took it back. 

Loki had the sort of look on his face that gave away the scalding burns to his mouth, but he said nothing about it. "You're not drinking any of it," he said. 

"Yeah, because it's hot," Darcy pointed out. She took another small sip and tried not to laugh. 

"Have you eaten anything today?" the woman in front asked. Darcy wasn't sure which one of them she was talking to, but the answer was the same either way. 

"No, we got out of Seattle at like, five this morning," Darcy said. "We only stopped to pick up the boat."

"And the betrayer," Loki amended. 

"Yeah, and him."

The woman put the car into gear and started to pull out of the parking lot and onto the road. As they drove through the town, Darcy looked out the windows at their surroundings. She couldn't see any big black SUVs, but they were probably hiding. There was no way SHIELD didn't know where they were. Even if they couldn't cross the border, they'd have notified Canada's Men in Black already, for sure. 

The town was a small one, but not a desolate one. They found a McDonald's close to the main road back out of town, where Loki tried to make the poor woman order everything on the menu. All he got was a Big Mac and a fish sandwich, much to his annoyance, and to Darcy's amusement. She wasn't even sure the bean pole could get all the way through his first meal, but then he inhaled both boxes of fries and both sandwiches in about five minutes.

"Jeez, you guys must have black holes in your stomachs," Darcy observed. She only got some fries to go with her soup, and was still working on both. 

The driver, whose name turned out to be Lil, glanced back in her mirror as they drove down a tree-lined mountain highway. "You two are mutants, right?" she asked. 

Darcy shook her head. "No. I'm completely boring ordinary, and he's from outer space. I'm just the unlucky schmuck who found him."

There was a pause before Lil spoke again. "I was told one of you was given the cure." There was an odd, stiff quality to her voice, but it was a touchy subject.

"He was," Darcy said. She took another drink of her soup, now a suitable temperature, and continued. "They went all Roswell and shit on him out there. His people are like, super advanced, to the point that it looks like magic. They wanted to see what the cure would do to him, I guess."

"What did it do?" Lil asked, almost subdued. 

"Fucked him up," Darcy said, wanting to laugh despite the topic. "He couldn't even talk when I found him. Remember when they had that security breach at the White House? He can do the kind of things that guy could do. He tried it a few days ago to get us away from SHIELD's goons, and it almost killed him. They're really strong people too. I watched one of them get his neck broken and then just shrug it off."

Loki sat stiff beside her, looking straight ahead and not adding a thing to the conversation. Darcy felt kind of bad about giving so much about him away like that, but she also kept hoping that the next person she told would know how to fix it and make him better. 

But no-one said anything. The car took on an almost oppressive silence, giving Darcy a sudden longing for her iPod.


	28. Chapter 28

As Darcy warmed up and became more aware of what was going on around her, she also became more aware of the fact that she had no idea where they were or where they were going. They were on a four-lane highway, travelling through trees and gradually climbing higher and higher up yet another mountain, but that was all she could see. Snow was falling in flurries outside, and would have been pretty under any other circumstance. 

While Loki dozed beside her, Darcy took the opportunity to check through their bags to make sure they still had everything. Some of the clothes inside were damp, along with the books, so Darcy pulled them all out and draped them over the back of the seat. Behind her, in the back of the SUV, she was surprised to find a big box of cat litter and a bunch of candles in a bag. 

"What's all this?" she asked, poking through to see if there was anything else interesting. Flashlights and a few gallons of water, but nothing else totally unordinary. 

"Emergency kit. We're going over the Rockies," Lil said. 

Darcy didn't completely understand, but she pretended that she did. 

"Where are we going?" Darcy asked. "Like, once we get to the other side."

"Winnipeg," said Lil. "It's about two days' drive this time of year. We should get to Calgary late tonight, if the weather holds up."

Darcy had no idea what that meant, in the overall scale of their journey, but it sounded long and awful. "We have no idea what we're doing or where we're actually going," she said. She wondered if the whole itinerary was only known by whoever was pulling the strings from deep within the Rising Tide, or if everyone helping them knew. 

"We're going to Tórshavn," Loki mumbled. 

"Yes, thank you. And I have no idea where that is, do you?" Darcy said. 

Loki said nothing and pretended to be asleep again. 

"All I know is we're going to Winnipeg, sweetie. I'm sorry," Lil said. "If anyone knew all the details and they got arrested, it could destroy the entire network. We're meeting someone there who knows where you're going next."

It made perfect sense, but that didn't make it any less nerve-wracking. 

"So, what do I do if I decide I want to come back?" she asked. 

The silence from the front of the car gave the feeling that Lil would have been giving her a very pointed look in the mirror if she hadn't been so focused on the road. 

"Is that something you're thinking about doing?" she asked. 

Darcy sighed. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Then why are you coming along? It's a lot easier to move once person than two." She didn't sound angry or annoyed, so much as she sounded confused. 

Darcy looked over at Loki and sighed. "Because he'd just wind up back in a lab if he was on his own. At first I thought I could point him in the right direction and set him free, but he'd have never got out of Seattle by himself. Not alive, anyway."

Loki grumbled something at her, but Darcy could hear what it was. 

"He needs me," she said. 

Lil nodded. "I get that," she said. "But you know if you come back, you're looking at a SHIELD prison, miles underground, right?"

"Yeah," Darcy said. "But I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if I went somewhere else and had to pretend to be someone else for the rest of my life."

She knew there was probably a third option; to follow Loki wherever he was going. Go live with Legolas and the other elves. She wouldn't have to pretend to be someone else, but the thought of living the rest of her life on another planet freaked her out more than a little bit. What if all the food was toxic, or she got there and couldn't breathe the air? Just because Loki was fine on Earth didn't mean it would go both ways. Loki was once worshipped as a god. And there were probably a lot of reasons for that. 

"That's a hell of a choice to make," Lil said. 

"Yeah," Darcy repeated. 

She looked over at Loki again, knowing he wasn't really sleeping, and leaned against his side. Loki shifted like he was going to push her off, but apparently decided to tolerate her after all. 

"Jeez, you're still cold," Darcy said, looking down at where the back of her hand was touching his arm. Her hot water bottle had lost all its heat, but now she was tempted to reheat it the next chance they got and make Loki hold onto it for a while. 

"I'm fine," he muttered. 

Darcy ignored him and held her hand against the side of his face. He felt like he'd been out rolling in the snow, for as little heat was coming off him. But it didn't seem to bother him, since he still had his hoodie down by his feet. 

"Are you always this cold?" asked Darcy. 

"I'm fine," Loki said more forcefully. He pushed Darcy off him and climbed over the seat to sit in the front. 

"Woah, seat belts," Lil said, surprised at the sudden invasion. 

Loki glared at her, but before he could say anything horrible, Darcy leaned forward and tugged on the shoulder strap of his seatbelt. 

"This thing here," she said, getting his attention. "Keeps you from going through the windshield if we hit a bear."

"You better hope we don't hit a bear," Lil said dubiously. 

"Do it before we get pulled over. That's the last thing we need is for a cop to recognise us," Darcy told him. 

That seemed to do the trick. Loki finally reached for it, and Darcy was ready to start explaining how it worked, but Loki managed to work it out on his own. He sat, looking uncomfortable as he watched the scenery pass by them outside. Once again, Darcy found herself looking for cops or big, black SUVs, but she didn't any on the road. The view outside slowly turned almost flat and boring, made even more boring by the blanket of white over everything. It wasn't what Darcy had expected after being told they were going to be going over the Rockies. 

Just after noon, they came to a small city just kind of stuck right there in the middle of nowhere. After finding her shoes and getting Loki to put his on, she took him inside the service station while Lil filled up her SUV, which Darcy was strangely relieved to see was white. 

Darcy let Loki wander through the aisles while she found a self-service microwave to heat up her water bottle. 

"Are you hungry?" Darcy asked, watching Loki sneer and scowl at the shelves of junk food. 

Loki turned his sneer to her, which probably meant yes. Or for her to mind her own business. She wasn't sure. 

She turned her attention back to the water bottle to make sure it didn't explode in the microwave, and pulled it out to let some of the steam escape. Deciding it could still be hotter, she put it back in to finish off the timer and went back to watching Loki in case he decided to steal anything. When he found what he wanted -- three packs of jerky, a bunch of doughnuts, some chips, and a case of beer -- he surprised Darcy by bringing it all up to the counter. 

"No, you can't have beer in the car. Put it back," Darcy said as the microwave dinged. 

Loki looked like he was going to argue, but instead he grit his teeth and exchanged it for a gallon of chocolate milk. Darcy assumed Loki was going to wait for Lil and make her pay for his loot, but he once again surprised Darcy by having the clerk ring it up and paying for it himself. Darcy watched, trying not to seem too confused as Loki handed the clerk the wrong amount of cash and got about $40 back before the clerk even figured out his change. With everything paid for, Darcy followed Loki back out to the car, hugging her hot water bottle against her chest. 

"Where the hell did you get that?" she demanded as she settled into the back seat. 

"You keep saying we have no money. I took it upon myself to address the situation," he said, as if there was nothing wrong with that. 

"By what? Stealing someone's wallet?" Darcy asked. 

"I was going to." Loki tore into one of the packs of jerky and pulled out the biggest piece he could find. "Until I observed several people using a machine to get money. I was able to persuade it to give me some."

Darcy blinked. It explained Loki's appetite and mood, at least. He must not have used too much of whatever reserves he was running on though, because he didn't act like he was going to die, at least. 

"How much money?" Darcy asked, almost afraid. 

Loki shifted and reached into his pocket. He handed her a stack of folded-over $20 bills over the seat and went back to his jerky. 

"Jesus Christ," Darcy said as she started to count it. Somehow, Loki had persuaded the ATM into giving him about $280. Plus whatever he'd spent inside. It wouldn't last them long, but it was better than the nothing they had. 

"Can't leave you alone for a second," Darcy mused. 

Lil finished up with the pumps and got back into the car, giving Loki's hoard a curious look. "Everything all right?" she asked. 

"Yeah, apparently his highness here can talk to ATMs," Darcy said, immediately realising it mightn't have been a good idea. Lil watched Loki for a few seconds more before nodding. "Useful skill to have," she said. 

For some reason, Darcy couldn't stop laughing.


	29. Chapter 29

Gas station bathrooms in Canada were pretty much exactly the same as gas station bathrooms in America. Darcy tried not to think about all the diseases she'd catch from using it, and just prayed there was soap at the sink. She caught her own reflection in the mirror, mistaking her new bottle-blonde hair for someone else's, and nearly jumped out of her shoes. She'd completely forgotten all about that, and quickly became bitter and resentful about it. She hadn't wanted to dye her hair blonde, and only did it because she was trying to avoid being recognised. It took less than a day for her to be recognised anyway, and now she had ugly blonde hair that stood out even more than her natural brown. 

Grumbling under her breath about it, Darcy quickly washed up and went back into the gas station to return the key and make sure Loki wasn't trying to buy more beer. Which did sound really good at the moment, but the last thing they needed was to get pulled over for an open container violation. 

As she handed the key back to the guy behind the counter, ignoring his weird stare, she looked around the small shop for Loki. Not that he was difficult to find. He towered over everything like the outer-worldly being he was and frowned at a bag of Combos. 

"They totally look like dog food, but I promise they're delicious," Darcy said, grabbing a few bags of the pizza flavoured ones. Since Loki hadn't shared any of his first batch of snacks, Darcy loaded up on her own and took them up to the counter to wait for Loki. Since she still had the cash, and Loki didn't know what it was worth anyway, Darcy paid and went back out to the car where Lil was waiting. 

"Oh my god sorry. This was the last stop, I promise," Darcy said as she climbed back into the SUV. She handed Lil a bottle of Coke before settling in for the rest of the ride. 

"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Lil said. 

"You could have found a tree, if you were that desperate. There are plenty of them around," Loki said like a smug bastard. 

Darcy sneered at him in disbelief. "Have you ever even seen a girl?" she asked. 

Lil waited for the two of them to stop bickering and for Loki to fasten his seatbelt before leaving the parking lot and getting back on the freeway. The terrain was starting to climb again, with mountains faint on the horizon in the setting sun. 

"We're gonna be able to go over that?" Darcy asked. Trying to navigate a mountain pass in January did not sound like a good time. 

"Yep. Highway all the way through. It goes clear across Canada. We're taking it all the way to Winnipeg," Lil said. 

"Well, that's easy," Darcy said. 

"How far is it to Tórshavn?" Loki asked. 

Darcy wanted to throttle him if he asked that question one more time. "Probably about the same as when we were in New Mexico. We actually went backwards when you bamfed us to Portland," she told him. 

"You're joking." Loki leaned back in his seat and covered his face with both hands. "Why is your realm so needlessly large?"

Darcy reached over the seat and petted his head, not even surprised when he slapped her hand away.

"So, what all can you do?" asked Lil hesitantly. "I used to know another technopath, years ago. But you can teleport too?"

Darcy didn't expect Loki to answer. She got the feeling he didn't like Lil, but was only sitting in front to get away from Darcy herself. 

"I can do what you can't even imagine possible," Loki said. "But not here. I need to leave this realm and everything on it."

Darcy was just glad Loki hadn't declared his intent to destroy everyone as well. She held the vague hope that maybe he was having second thoughts, or maybe he'd only said that at all to frighten her. At least he understood that frightening the help would get them nowhere. And probably stranded in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Just looking out at the snow was making Darcy cold again, so she bundled up in the blanket like it was a cocoon. A scratchy wool cocoon. Even though she was sick of Loki asking, she was wondering the same thing he was. She was already so sick of going places, and just wanted to be done already. She wished she at least had her phone so she could look up how much farther they had to go. And maybe figure out how the hell they were supposed to get there. She knew fuck all about Canada and where Calgary was in relation to Winnipeg, and where that was in relation to their final destination. For all she knew, they were going clear up to the north pole. She was just about as lost as Loki was, but at least she wasn't suffering horrendous culture shock as well. 

As the sun fell behind them and night fell stupidly early, Darcy started looking around behind the seat again. "Hey, is there another blanket in here?" she asked, feeling around blindly. 

"You're not that cold," Loki said in that grumpy way he got when he was too tired but resisting going to sleep. Darcy tried not to think about the fact that she'd been with him long enough to begin to recognise his moods. 

"How do you know? You're not me," she said. She gave up trying to find another blanket and tugged on Loki's shirt instead. "Then trade me spots, because the heater doesn't reach back here."

"Heater's not on. I need to save gas," Lil said. 

"Oh, well no wonder," said Darcy. She shivered into her blanket and wondered how far until the next gas station if they were running on economy mode. "Okay, seriously. Where's the other blanket then?"

With an irritated growl, Loki flung what remained of his snacks into the back seat before following after them, much to the indignance of Lil. 

"Would you sit down," she demanded, trying not to get hit by Loki's long legs as he climbed over the back seat. 

Before he even got settled, he picked up his forgotten hoodie from the floor. He jammed it over Darcy's head like he was trying to shove her into a burlap sack and fell down heavy beside her. 

"Would you shut up," he said. 

Darcy hesitated for a few seconds, not sure if she should try to make Loki wear more than just his T-shirt, but she decided against trying to provoke him further. She pulled the hoodie on over her own and re-settled herself against Loki's side, making sure to share the blanket with him as much as he'd allow. He shifted away, and for a second, Darcy thought he was going to try to bail out the door, but he apparently changed his mind and settled down again. 

"Go to sleep," Darcy said quietly. "You're getting mean and scary again."

"Good," muttered Loki. Darcy refrained from asking if he was five. 

Instead of going to sleep, he reached for Darcy's bag of sour gummy bears and took took about ten of them and ate them all at once. 

"Oh, god," Darcy said. 

Judging by his face, Loki immediately regretted his decision to steal her snacks. He spat the whole thing out onto the floor and wiped off his tongue with the back of his hand. 

"It's gone off. It's rancid," he complained. 

"It's supposed to taste like that. You're just not supposed to eat that many at once," Darcy said, not even trying to hide her laughter. 

"Whatever you just spat out, please clean it up," Lil said tiredly. 

Rather than say anything about how she'd already been putting up with this bullshit for about a week, Darcy found an empty carrier bag and handed it to Loki. He looked at her like he expected her to do it, but Darcy just dropped it onto his lap and pretended not to know what he wanted. 

He finally picked his mess up from the floor, only to open his door and throw it out to the side of the road. 

"Are you fucking serious?" Darcy demanded. "Oh my god, you're such a dickhead. What is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with you?" Loki countered, like the overgrown five year old he was. 

Fed up with it and seeing an opportunity, Darcy unlatched her belt and quickly climbed over the front seat to take the spot Loki had vacated. 

"Oh, you now," said Lil, sounding like she was starting to get pissed. Darcy smiled weakly as she did up her seatbelt. 

"Sorry. I forgot he's an ass," she said. She snuggled up in her blanket and looked out at the road, and the stretch of black wilderness ahead of them. It was going to be a long trip.


	30. Chapter 30

Darcy watched for any sign of movement by the door. Lil had been gone for a long time, sending a rising flood of panic through Darcy. Lil had been nice. She even put up with Loki's bullshit. But all Darcy could think about while left alone with Loki in a freezing SUV were all the ways in which Lil could betray them and sell them out. Darcy didn't even think she'd be surprised anymore. Her life had gone so horribly wrong, and nothing would ever go right again. 

She craned her neck to try to see inside the hotel lobby, but the angle was wrong, and all she could see was wall. How long did it take to check into a hotel room? What if Lil was calling the cops?

What if Lil had been arrested, and the Men in Black were waiting for Darcy to go investigate? Darcy was seriously starting to consider waking Loki and telling him they had to bail again when the lobby door opened. Darcy tensed up, expecting to see government spooks, but instead was surprised to see Lil. She walked back out to the SUV and opened the back to grab her bag, nodding toward the hotel.

“Come on," she said before she closed the back hatch. 

Darcy still wasn't sure if she felt any better, but she leaned over the back seat and nudged at Loki until he woke up. 

"Hey, time to go inside," she said when it seemed like he was actually awake. 

Loki grumbled something that might not have even been words. "Where are we?" he asked. 

"I don't know. Calgary, I think," Darcy said. 

"Where's that?" asked Loki. 

"I don't know," Darcy repeated. 

Loki looked annoyed, but started to get out of the car anyway. 

"Grab the bags. And the clothes off the seat," Darcy said as she cleaned up her mess in the front seat as quickly as she could. She contemplated taking her blanket in with her, but decided there would be plenty of warm blankets inside, so she left them. 

By the time she was halfway to the door of their ground-level motel room, she turned back and realised that Loki had only grabbed one of their bags, and none of the clothes Darcy had set out to dry. She almost went back for them, but was too cold to bother, and just wanted to get inside and get warm. Once she stepped inside, she realised a problem she hadn't even considered before. The room only had two beds. Loki pushed right past her and claimed the one farthest from the door for himself, crashing down like he'd already fallen asleep before he was off his feet. 

Darcy stalled, trying to make it look like she was just closing the door. She wanted to ask Lil if she could share with her, but she didn't want to give Lil yet another reason to distrust Loki. Not when there were so many already. 

"Hey, would anybody mind if I took a bath for like, an hour?" she asked, instead of dealing with the problem of once again having to share a bed with Loki. 

Loki mumbled something and Lil started walking toward the bathroom. 

"Yeah, give me a minute first," she said. 

While Lil took care of that, Darcy dug through the bag to find something to change into after her bath. It was Loki's bag, so none of it would fit her, and then he'd be grumpy about not having anything that fit him. Frowning, Darcy crammed it all back into the bag and tossed it against the wall. She had like, eight layers on. The outer layers were probably still clean, at least. 

Once the bathroom was free, Darcy barricaded herself inside and started running the tap. Before the bath even filled up, she undressed and stepped inside, not sure if the water was already too hot, or if she was just still that cold. Either way, she was probably going to boil a few layers of skin off, and she didn't even care. Maybe it would boil the cold right out of her, and take the mildewy smell of lake water with it. As she leaned back in the cramped bath, letting her hair soak, she realised that she could only barely remember falling in, and didn't even know how she got back out. Someone had to have gone in after her. 

She almost thought she remembered Loki going in after her, which made no sense at all. But he was wearing new clothes as well, which meant his were probably soaked and full of fish pee too. 

But he seemed fine. She also seemed to remember him just sitting in the snow, so maybe he just didn't feel the cold like she did. 

Maybe that's why he always felt so cold. 

Shivering at the thought of that horrible lake, Darcy nudged the water even hotter with her toes. She couldn't believe they had only just left Seattle that morning. It had been the longest day ever, in the longest week ever. Darcy closed her eyes and wondered about just giving up. She wondered what would happen if she did. If she just sat down and waited for SHIELD to find her. Maybe she could send Loki out on his own, and he could get where he was going without help. 

And maybe she could blow rainbows out of her ass. All he did was sleep and piss people off. He'd get captured or killed in less than an hour. 

Once the bath was full to the point of giving the overflow drain something to do, Darcy turned off the water and let herself sink completely beneath the surface. She finally felt warm for what felt like the first time ever, and hoped it would last forever. She pulled herself back up when she needed to breathe again and looked around the sides of the bath. There were no tiny bottles of shampoo, but there was a tiny bar of soap waiting to be unwrapped and used. Darcy scrubbed every inch of herself, and then took the soap to her hair to get the mildew smell out. She knew it would just wreck her hair, but she'd already wrecked it anyway by dying it a stupid colour. She wasn't sure she could make it any worse, actually. 

She rinsed her hair out in and sat up, disgusted at the brown colour in the water that she hoped was from leftover dye. Not wanting to soak in nasty water any longer, she gave up on her extra long bath and drained the water, starting the shower as she got up. She rinsed all the gross-ness off her, and even left some hot water behind when she got out. There was one whole towel waiting for her, which was kind of questionable-looking, but she ignored that and dried off before putting on the hoodie and pyjamas she'd been wearing as an outer layer. It looked kind of cheap and dirty to leave the bath wearing the same thing she had on going in, but she didn't care. It didn't smell like lake water, at least. 

Back out in the hotel room, Lil was flipping channels on the tiny TV while Loki slept, sprawled out on the bed. Taking a moment to steel herself, Darcy tossed her dirty clothes down by Loki's bag and sat down next to him. 

"Thought you were gonna be in there for longer," Lil said. 

Darcy frowned. "The water was gross."

Lil laughed quietly. "Does your friend want to take a shower?" she asked. 

Darcy looked over at Loki, not even tempted to ask him. He wasn't even pretending to be asleep. He was out. He was breathing so shallowly, Darcy almost through he might have just keeled over when no-one was looking. 

"No, don't wake him up. He's really sick," Darcy said. "I think that's why he's so grumpy and horrible all the time."

She looked down at her hands glad that the hoodie sleeves were long enough to cover the bruises Loki had put on her wrists.

"I don't think he means to be so... mean, you know?" she said. 

Lil sighed deeply. 

"It changes people," she said. "It's one thing if someone actually wants it. You get a healing factor, and you've won the mutant powers lottery. But you see these kids who kill anything they touch, or they're physically deformed from their mutation, and those are the people who need it. But when they started using it as a punishment, it just makes things worse. Then you get mutant rights movements that turn into terrorists."

"The bitch of it is, they're right," Darcy said. It left a bad taste in her mouth to say it out loud, but she'd known for a while that the other, more peaceful methods weren't working. "Maybe that's what I'll do. Help the Rising Tide get this shit fixed."

"We're always recruiting," Lil said dryly. 

Darcy didn't have to use her imagination to figure out why. She yawned loudly and leaned back against the headboard, careful to avoid actually touching Loki. 

"God, today sucks," she complained. "Everything sucks."

"Yeah," Lil agreed. It wasn't exactly comforting, but at the same time, Darcy was glad it wasn't more empty reassurance. She'd had just about enough of that for a lifetime. 

She glanced over to Loki, where he slept on top of the blankets, and decided it was safe to climb under them. She was starting to get cold again, but was vaguely aware that it was probably just her mind messing with her.

"What time are we leaving tomorrow?" she asked. 

Lil looked at the clock on the table between the beds. "Early," she said. "If we don't hit any storms, we can make it to Winnipeg late tomorrow night."

Darcy already knew the drive was going to suck. "Kay. Then I'm going to bed," she said. She reached over to turn off the lamp, not even caring that the TV was still on. She was asleep before Lil turned it off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, chapter 30. This fic was never meant to get this long, and kind of got way out of hand around chapter ten. Lol
> 
> A lot of people have expressed interest in knowing what's going through Loki's head during all this, and how he feels about Darcy. I've known the answers to these questions since the beginning, but have avoided answering them because knowing what he's thinking will spoil the fic in a big way. But if you're still curious, and want to know despite this, I did put a little bit of insight up on tumblr. 
> 
> http://loki-of-sassgaard.tumblr.com/post/101567858914


	31. Chapter 31

Darcy didn't realise she was freezing to death again until she was woken up suddenly to the familiar sensation of her space being invaded. Before she really realised what was going on, she felt herself being pulled back away from the edge of the bed. She went completely stiff as Loki pulled her close to his chest, unable to believe he would actually try anything with Lil not three feet away. 

"You're freezing again," he mumbled into the back of Darcy's neck as he moved the flimsy blankets around them. 

He didn't say or do anything else after that, and it took Darcy a few tense minutes to realise he'd gone back to sleep. His breath on the back of her neck was just about the only warm thing about him, making Darcy wonder how being held against him was supposed to make anything better. At least this time his dick wasn't digging into her ass. She looked across the darkness to where Lil slept, wondering if she even would be able to help. Even if he was sick and broken, Loki was still what ancient people once worshipped as a god. He could probably overpower both of them if he wanted. But he was also asleep, and once Darcy finally managed to relax again, she tried not to admit that it actually felt kind of nice to just be held and not be groped or threatened. She looked at the clock between the two beds, actually kind of glad it was only 1:30 in the morning. It meant if she actually managed to get back to sleep, she could maybe get a full night's rest for the first time in days. 

The next time she woke up, she was pulled out of a dream where she was stuck inside a labyrinthine version of Culver while aliens attacked and stuff was being knocked off the walls with heavy thuds. Loki was suddenly holding onto her very tightly and sitting straight up behind her. She looked back at him, able to just make out his features in the dim morning light. 

"What?" she started to ask, but before she could even finish the word, Loki clamped his hand tight over her mouth. She almost screamed anyway, but loud knocking at the door made her forget all about Loki's hand on her mouth. She looked at the window by the door, realising she could just barely make out several figures through the curtains. 

"Miss Crawley, we know you're in there, and we know you're harbouring a fugitive. Open up!" someone called from outside. It took Darcy a few moments to realise that someone was Coulson. 

Darcy managed to twist her head away and looked back at Loki as he got up. Once on his feet, he grabbed Darcy by the wrist and led her to the door, standing against the wall so when the door opened, it would smack right into them. Lil was up as well, slowly getting out of bed and walking to the other side of the room like she was ready for a fight. 

There was the sound of a key card in the lock, giving away their intent to break in suddenly. The door opened, and as soon as the first person stepped inside, Loki threw a punch to the side of his head, dropping the agent to the ground. It wasn't until she looked down at him that Darcy realised that it was Agent Sitwell, which unpleasantly reminded her that he was part of SHIELD as well. 

"Sitwell, no!" she said before she could stop herself. It was just enough to draw Coulson's attention as he came in, gun drawn. He looked at her almost questioningly, but it was cut short by Lil launching a flying kick at him. They both toppled into the parking lot outside, giving an opening for Loki to grab Darcy again and run. A third agent had his gun drawn just outside the door, but before he could do anything, Loki let go of Darcy again and grabbed the agent. He moved so quickly, it was barely even a struggle before the agent fell limp after a wet cracking sound. Darcy stared down at him in horror, seeing what she knew was a dead person in the trampled snow. Even after Loki took hold of her wrist again, he had to drag her away. She looked back to see Lil giving as good as she got with Coulson as Loki led her out to the sidewalk. In the few seconds it took Loki to decide on which direction to go, something flew right past Darcy's head and hit Loki where his shoulder met his neck. If he were human, the arrow would have killed him almost instantly. Instead, he howled an inhuman sound and turned toward the direction of the hidden sniper and threw his hand forward. Darcy watched someone fly off the roof like he'd been pulled by a wire. Unable to believe any of what she'd just seen, she looked back up at Loki just in time to see him snap the shaft of the arrow off, leaving the point still stuck in him. 

Before Coulson could manage to arrest Lil, the apparent ninja or some shit, Loki pulled Darcy along down the road. The early morning commute was probably already starting, but as far out on the edge of town as they were, the streets were still empty. As Loki pulled Darcy along the sidewalk, she became acutely aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing shoes, and was pretty sure she was about to get frostbite. 

"We need a car," she said suddenly. Loki looked around, and started pulling her toward a new minivan parked outside a small shopping centre. 

"No, it's too new. I won't be able to start it," she said. 

She looked over her shoulder, knowing it wasn't long before Coulson and his goons caught up with them. Turning her sights back to the meagre offerings of the shopping centre, she spotted an older Taurus estate and tugged Loki in that direction. On the off-chance the owner was an idiot, she tried the door, but was unsurprised to find it locked. She got ready to try to break the window, but Loki pushed her out of the way instead. He felt up the door like he was trying to get to second base and tried it again, this time opening it like it had never been locked. Darcy climbed inside and reached over to unlock the other door, only then realising the flaw in her plan. 

"Hey, that thing you did to make people not see us. Can you do that to the car?" she asked. 

The look of physical pain on Loki's face actually hurt her to look at. 

"I know it hurts you, but if we get pulled over, we're dead," she said. 

Loki sighed and looked around. "I need a knife," he said. 

Darcy started looking around the car, and actually came up with a small jackknife in the glove box. She handed it to Loki so he could do his thing while she got to work on starting the car. She wrenched the bottom steering column panel out, having to throw all her weight into breaking it, and pulled the mess of wires free. She started sorting through them, finding the starter bundle amongst all the rest. She separated out the wires she knew she needed and poked her head out the door to see where Loki was. 

"Are you done with the knife?" she asked. 

Loki grumbled and skidded it across the ground at her. Using the knife, Darcy stripped a few of the wires and twisted them together, lighting up the dash panel. With that done, she stripped the brown one and touched it to the first bundle. The car engine started, revving almost lazily in the cold weather. Cringing desperately, Darcy revved the engine a few more times, just to make sure it didn't die. Once she was certain, she used the knife to pry off the keyhole on the steering column and pulled the wheel hard to the left to break the lock. Darcy never thought she'd be so glad to have lost her keys her freshman year of college. 

Just as she finished that, Loki opened the passenger door and fell into the seat. His hands were covered in blood, and Darcy was pretty sure his nose was bleeding as well. 

A sudden, terrible thought occurring to her, Darcy jumped in her seat and slammed her hands against her thighs to feel her pockets. She shoved her hands inside them, and was immediately relieved to find their dwindling supply of cash still on her. She counted it out, wondering how they'd managed to spend over $100 already. 

"Let's get some breakfast. And then we'll figure it out from there, okay?" she said. 

Loki nodded tiredly and turned in his seat so he faced the window. "Get it out," he said. His voice was heavy and wet, and definitely not healthy. 

"It's probably stopping the blood," Darcy said, not wanting to look at the black shaft sticking out of his skin. There was less blood than she expected there to be, but she knew if she pulled the arrow out, he probably would bleed to death. 

"Get. It. Out," Loki demanded through gritted teeth. 

With a disgusted grimace, Darcy shut her door and turned to face Loki better. This was just like that first night, when she pulled out all his stitches. He hadn't bled too much then, so Darcy convinced herself that it would be fine. She tried to find a way to grab the arrow shaft without getting too much blood on her hands, but he'd broken it off so close to the skin, she wasn't even sure if she could pull it out at all. She finally just went in, grabbing it and pulling on it as hard as she could. Loki made a sound like he was biting back a scream, and she almost stopped. But there was no point in pulling it out halfway, so she repositioned her grip and gave it one last good tug. The arrow came free with a sickening squelching sound, letting the blood flow freely behind it. It was still less than Darcy had expected, but enough to make a mess all the same. She looked around the car, finding a small blanket balled up in the back seat, and grabbed it. After wiping her hands off with it, she pressed the blanket to the back of Loki's neck and pulled his hand up so he held it in place. 

"Can you eat right now?" Darcy asked, realising that the arrow had probably gone into his throat. 

Loki settled back in his seat and nodded tiredly. Nodding back, Darcy turned back to face the wheel and put the car into gear. She had no idea where they were or how to get to where they needed to go, but she was pretty sure they'd find a McDonald's or something sooner or later. Hoping Loki's disgusting blood magic would work on the car, she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, looking for big, black SUVs at every turn.


	32. Chapter 32

Darcy was pretty sure she was just driving around in circles while she looked for a place that looked like it was open, without being the sort of place they might get spotted. 

"Okay, so we have a problem," Darcy said, watching a black SUV drive through the intersection. 

"What else is new?" asked Loki grimly. 

"We have about a hundred and sixty bucks left," Darcy said. "Which is more than enough for breakfast, but we don't have any clothes or shoes, and we're on a quarter of a tank and are gonna need gas real soon."

"Don't even say it," Loki said. 

Darcy turned a corner and drove further into town, passing by houses and and small shops specialty that wouldn't help them at all. 

"We're kinda screwed," Darcy pointed out. As she stopped at a light, another big, black SUV stopped next to them. Darcy froze, not sure what to do when Coulson looked over and saw her right next to him in her brand new stolen car. 

Loki slowly reached over to grab onto her leg again and squeezed hard enough to leave bruises on top of the ones that were already there. He leaned over and looked into the window of the car next to them and shook his head. "It's not them," he said, letting go of her and sitting back in his seat. 

"Are you sure?" Darcy asked, too afraid to look. 

"There's a child licking the glass."

Darcy looked over and almost cried with relief. There was indeed a child licking the back seat window, and now that Darcy looked at the car properly, it was way too old to be one of SHIELD's. She breathed in sharply and wiped her eyes with both hands, absolutely refusing to lose control in front of Loki. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice, and was leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed again.

At the green light, Darcy continued her wandering, taking turns at random until she finally came to an area that looked promising. Loki wasn't in the condition to go into a sit-down restaurant, and even if he had been, they still lacked shoes or real clothes, so she kept looking for a place with a drive through. She finally found a Burger King with a short line at the window and pulled up, looking over the menu and hoping they didn't insist on serving their nasty breakfast menu until stupidly late. 

She considered asking Loki what he wanted, but quickly realised it was stupid. He wanted one of everything, just like he had last time, and given the state he was in, Darcy figured she should try to manage something close to that. When the person on the other end of the speaker finally asked for her order, Darcy ordered the first ten burgers on the menu.

"And what kind of juice do you have?" she asked. 

"Apple and orange," the crackly voice responded. 

"Apple. The biggest one you've got. And a large Pepsi. And two large fries. And like, the biggest thing of chicken nuggets you have," she said, pretty sure she was making the poor cashier think they were being trolled. 

Loki watched boredly while Darcy paid at the window, but once the bags were handed over, he was suddenly at full attention. He started digging through the bags while Darcy got the drinks settled, and immediately went for the ginormous box of chicken nuggets. 

"No, hey, that's mine," she said, reaching to take it away from him. She pulled out her carton of fries as well. "The rest is all yours, buddy. And this." She handed him the bottle of apple juice, assuming he'd be able to open it on his own.

Checking to make sure she hadn't been holding anybody else up, Darcy pulled away from the drive through window and started wandering the streets aimlessly again, looking for anywhere to get the rest of what they needed. Chicken nuggets weren't the best breakfast, but they were fresh and hot, and so were her fries, so it was miles better than what she'd been having for breakfast lately. 

She was about halfway done with her chicken nuggets, and the car's tank was getting dangerously low when she finally spotted a strip mall with a big pharmacy type store and a gas station. She stopped in the parking lot and looked over at Loki, hating herself for what she was about to ask. 

"We're broke," she said. 

"I don't care," said Loki around a mouthful of cheeseburger. He had practically inhaled them all, and was on his last one already. 

"Yes you do, because we're not gonna get very far," Darcy told him. "Seriously, we are so fucked. I don't even care if you knock it over. We need money," she said. She couldn't believe what she'd just said, but their breakfast had been stupid expensive. But Loki needed it. She'd been around him and Thor long enough to have learned that keeping an Asgardian fed was about as expensive as keeping a horse fed. 

"We need shoes. We need clothes. We need gas. We need food. We need money in case something happens again," she said. "A lot of it."

Loki sat silently as he finished off his burger, and then ate every single crumb from his fries. Knowing hers were just going to go cold anyway, since she'd ordered twenty fucking chicken nuggets as well, Darcy handed what was left of hers over to him. He ate the rest of her fries, and then slammed back his juice like it was his job. 

"Fine," he said once he was finished. He opened the door and got out of the car. Just watching him walk through the slush on the ground made Darcy's feet hurt, but he didn't even seem to notice. 

He walked inside the gas station, not even drawing any attention to himself despite being barefoot and in pyjamas, and found the ATM. Darcy couldn't see what he was doing from in the car, but he seemed to be concentrating on it pretty hard. Finally, he looked up and walked back outside, casual as could be. Once back inside the car, he handed the stack of cash over to Darcy. She took it and counted through it, not sure if she should feel bad that Loki just stole almost two grand, or glad that they could actually afford to get themselves across Canada now. 

"Okay," she said, stuffing the cash into her pocket and looking up at the pharmacy. "Okay. I don't want to go in there alone."

"I'm tired," Loki complained. 

"I'm scared," Darcy said. "I've never done this before. I don't know what to do if I get caught. What if you get caught out here while I'm in there?"

Loki sat up and looked over at her almost nervously. "Give me the knife," he grumbled. 

Darcy knew what was coming this time, but it didn't make her any less grossed out when Loki started finger painting on her chest again. But he was less rushed this time, and seemed a little more confident in his work as they stepped out of the car, which made Darcy feel almost a little better about having his blood smeared all over her chest again.

"Can you unlock the doors again when we get back?" Darcy asked meekly, standing up on her tip toes to keep as much of her feet off the icy pavement as possible. 

Loki sighed. "Fine."

Darcy locked them, since a pre-hotwired-car was just an invitation to get stolen. She tried not to run across the parking lot, but every step she took was more painful than the last. Apparently, Loki was getting sick of watching her suffer, because about halfway there, he scooped her up in both arms and carried her the rest of the way. Once inside, he all but dropped her, making her almost fall flat on her ass. 

Darcy grabbed a cart and started going down the aisles until she found the small winter wear section. She grabbed a pair of ugly brown boots in her size and tossed them into the cart. 

"Do you remember what size you wore?" she asked. 

Loki shrugged almost indifferently. 

"I think they were a..." She found a size twelve on the shelf and handed them to him. "Try that on."

Loki looked at her blankly. At first, Darcy thought he was just going to keep staring at her, but he finally bent over to try the boots on. 

"That's fine," he said after barely getting his foot inside. He tossed them into the cart and immediately wandered off. Darcy rolled her eyes, wanting to point out that wandering off was pretty much exactly defeating the purpose of making him come in with her, but she didn't want to shout in the middle of the quiet store. Instead, she grabbed a few packs of socks in both their sizes, and then took a few sweatshirts and heavy pants from the tiny rack. 

As she wandered through the store, trying to catch back up with Loki, she passed by an aisle with a few blankets, and was struck by an idea. She grabbed a few of them, and a couple of their cheap little pillows, and threw them all into the cart. She was just getting ready to go start looking for Loki again when he found her and dumped a huge armful of junk food into the cart. 

"Got everything?" she asked, somewhat pleased that he had saved time and got something mildly useful. 

"We should go," he said. 

"Yep," Darcy agreed. She took the cart up to the register and smiled pleasantly at the poor guy behind the counter, right next to the front door with all the cold air. 

He didn't even look up as he rang up their stuff and bagged it. Again, the total was stupid outrageous, but this time it didn't matter so much. They had enough of a cushion to get them to Winnipeg and beyond, even if Loki did decide to stop every two hours for more food. 

Outside, Darcy stopped Loki before they started back toward the car. 

"Hang on, hang on," she said. 

There weren't any benches nearby, so she sat on the dryest patch of concrete she could find and dug their boots out of the bags. "Here," she said, handing Loki his, as well as a thick pair of socks. He seemed like he didn't even care, but his feet were actually dressed by the time Darcy was standing again, never so glad to be wearing shoes. 

The walk back across the parking lot wasn't nearly as torturous as the first time, and she felt almost confident that they might get out alive by the time they got to the car. Maybe it was just the shoes, but they were a hell of a morale boost already. 

"Here," she said again as she pressed the button to open the back hatch. "I got a present for you."

She climbed inside, finding a few more blankets already behind the seats, but not at all regretting her purchase. She felt around behind the seats, taking almost embarrassingly long to find the right latch. Finally, the seat fell forward, not laying exactly flat, but close enough. She laid out two of the blankets to pad out the bed, and then tossed the pillows inside. 

"You have been so nice, and I don't know why, but you deserve some sleep now," she said. 

Loki looked at her dubiously, but climbed in anyway. Once he seemed fairly settled, Darcy put the rest of their bags into the back with him and closed the hatch. By the time Darcy was back in the front seat, Loki was out like a light, sleeping on top of all of the blankets. She hoped that maybe wherever they were going after Winnipeg, they could just keep their borrowed car and drive all the way through, so Loki could actually get some rest before he died from exhaustion. 

Not wanting to think about that, she started the car and pulled up to the gas station, so ready to just get the hell out before someone spotted them again.


	33. Chapter 33

"What are you doing?"

Darcy had expected Loki to actually sleep for the entire trip. She had no idea he was even awake, or if he'd even even gone to sleep, but when he spoke she jumped so hard that she accidentally threw her highlighter across the car. 

"Jesus Christ," she said as she fished the highlighter out of the footwell. She spread the map back over the dash and finished tracing her chosen route. "I bought a map, so I know where the hell to actually go," she said. 

There was a much easier-looking, more direct route across Canada, but it was also the main route across Canada, and thus probably crawling with Feds. She had no idea how much more time the northern detour would take, but it would probably be less-travelled than the main highway. 

"You can read a map?" Loki asked incredulously. 

Darcy wanted to hit him. "Go to sleep," she told him instead. 

She looked at her traced route and frowned, knowing there was still one major problem. The map she'd bought was a national map, and she had no idea how to actually get out of Calgary, except for that Route 2 kind of looked like it went north. 

Darcy looked around, hoping to find a compass or something that might tell her which way north was. 

"Where the hell is north?" she wondered out loud. 

Loki opened one of the back doors, and for a second Darcy thought he was just going to start wandering away. Instead, he just poked his head out and looked skyward at the clouds. After he was done letting all the warm air out, he slammed the door shut and pointed over Darcy's shoulder. "There," he said. 

Darcy looked in the direction he pointed and slid back over to the driver's seat. 

"No, seriously though. You should go to sleep," she said as she started the car again. 

"You're hopeless without me," Loki said, lazily climbing back into the front seat. 

"Hey, I got a map," Darcy defended. 

"But you still can't navigate," said Loki. 

Darcy ignored him and pulled back out onto the road. There were more cars out now, making Darcy more than a little nervous about being on the road with them. 

"God, I'm so scared someone is just gonna run right into us because they won't see us and decide to change lanes," she said. 

"We're not invisible," Loki said. "That's a different kind of magic."

Darcy felt a little better about changing lanes so she could turn at the next light, but she still moved extra cautiously as she did. "There are different kinds?" she asked. 

Loki didn't answer. He just closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat. 

Darcy continued to head vaguely north, keeping her attention on the road signs. She didn't see anything helpfully telling her that Route 2 was just right around the corner, so she kept going in the same direction. 

"So, how does it work?" she asked eventually. 

Loki barely looked up at her. "It just does," he said irritably. 

"Okay," Darcy said. 

She pulled up to an intersection as a big, black, definitely SHIELD SUV pulled up beside her. She looked over out of the corner of her eye and saw Sitwell in the passenger seat, without his glasses and looking kind of green. A part of her was glad to see he was still alive, but the rest of her felt like she was going to have a heart attack. 

"Loki. Loki, Loki. Loki," she said, slapping at him and trying to wake him up. 

He slapped back, a little harder than he needed to, and slowly sat up. As soon as he saw what Darcy saw, he seemed wide awake. Grabbing her leg again and digging his fingers into her skin, he looked around. 

"Turn. Now," he said. 

Darcy looked around wildly, not even sure if she could turn legally. But there wasn't anyone next to her in the turn lane, so she made a right when the signal turned green, trying to make it seem like she was totally planning on doing that. She kept her attention on her mirrors, watching as the SUV turned left at the light. It gave her just enough time to breathe before she checked again to see it turning around right in the middle of the street.

"Shit, fuck, shit shit shit," she said, gripping the wheel so hard it distracted her from Loki's bony fingers still digging into her leg.

He turned round in his seat, watching out the rear window. "What did you do?" he asked stiffly.

"Me?" Darcy demanded. "Why does it have to have been me? I didn't fucking do anything. It's your busted fucking magic or whatever."

There was a major looking road up ahead that would take them north, so Darcy started looking for the on-ramp or the turn signal, or whatever would get them where she wanted to be. But whoever had designed the intersection had apparently never taken multiple lanes of traffic going in multiple directions into account. There was no place to turn left, and soon they had gone straight over the highway or whatever it was. Just as she was getting ready to flip a seriously illegal U-turn, she came to a random left turn at a gap in the median. Not even caring if it was the right one, Darcy took it. It led straight to the highway below, which was both a relief and a new source of panic all at once. Trying to balance merging into traffic without getting killed and watching the SUV that had been trailing them, she watched as it drove right on by, apparently never even seeing her get onto the highway. She relaxed into her seat and let herself breathe, but Loki stayed where he was, still trying to poke his fingers straight through her flesh and watching out the back window. He stayed that way for several minutes before finally letting himself relax as well. As he settled back into his seat and looked at the cars around them, Darcy rubbed the spot above her knee, half expecting to actually find blood. It still hurt like a motherfucker, and even if she wasn't bleeding, she knew she'd find one hell of a bruise as soon as she took off her pants.

"I think," she said slowly, pausing to breathe deeply a few more times. "I think we might actually be on the right road. Can you check the map?"

Loki glared at her before reaching for it. He looked out the window at the sky where the clouds had got even heavier, took one look at the map, and then threw it against the dash. "No," he said flatly.

Darcy sighed. "Then hold onto it so I can look at it." She didn't even care if he wasn't being deliberately irritating. He was still being fucking irritating.

Loki did at least hold the map for her. She looked at it, and then out to the road and what lay on either side of it. There weren't much around, and it was starting to thin out even more, but what there was seemed to match with what the map said would happen for this particular stretch of this particular highway.

"Kay," she said, nodding. "I think this is it. This should take us exactly where we want to go."

Loki folded the map with no regard for the creases already in the paper and tossed it back on the dash. "And where's that?" he asked. 

"I don't know," Darcy admitted. "If I can to an internet connection, I can figure that out, though."

"Figure it out now," Loki demanded. 

Darcy only didn't close her eyes and count to ten because she was driving, and did not want to die after so narrowly escaping with her life once already that morning. "I can't. Did you miss the part about nobody knowing where we're going until we get there?"

Loki crossed his arms over his chest and sank down into his seat.

"And pouting like a three-year-old isn't gonna change anything," Darcy said. "You're annoying as fuck when you're tired, you know that?"

"And you grow less useful by the minute," Loki told her. It was definitely a threat, but Darcy ignored it. He got mean and cranky when he was tired, and they both knew it. She knew he needed her a hell of a lot more than she needed him.

"Great. Then I'll just pull over and you can walk your happy ass to Norway," she said.

Loki looked away and turned his attention to the scenery out his window. Taking that as some kind of feeble victory, Darcy decided to ignore him as well, if that was what he was going to do to her. It would make the drive a little less stressful, at any rate.


	34. Chapter 34

As they got farther out of Calgary, the traffic began to thin. Fewer cars meant a smaller chance of SHIELD catching up with them, but it also meant a smaller chance of someone being close enough to help if the crappy, seriously-ill-equipped car lost traction and went off the road. As the snow piled up ever higher, Darcy regretted not stealing something bigger; something with four wheel drive. Something that wouldn't completely implode if it hit a deer. She was just glad Loki was passed out beside her, completely unaware of her silent panic as she drove further into the Canadian wilderness.

"It's gonna be fine," she promised herself. "We're gonna get there, and we're not gonna get lost, and we're not gonna get caught, and it's gonna be fine."

She repeated this over and over again, willing it to be true. She didn't even know where she was going, or if she was even on the right road at times. Then, mercifully, she saw a sign announcing Edmonton coming up ahead. Even if she wasn't on the right road, she was going in the right direction. Loki was still asleep, and since a sleeping Loki was a non-annoying Loki, she let him be. Trying to balance the map and not crashing into the car in front of her, Darcy quickly unfolded it and checked for where she was supposed to go. She couldn't tell how she was actually supposed to get from the road she was on to Route 16, but she assumed they would intersect at some point.

The further into the city she got, the more she realised she couldn't have been more wrong.

"Fucking shit fuck. Oh my god!" she complained, slapping the steering wheel in frustration. "Where the fuck am I?"

The only thing keeping her from breaking down right there in the car was the realisation that she'd woken Loki up, and he was glaring at her. He rolled his eyes and sighed, not even having the decency to pretend to be surprised.

"You're lost," he said flatly.

"Yes!" Darcy shouted, hitting the steering wheel again and again. "I'm fucking lost! Like you could do any fucking better, all right? I've never been to Canada in my life, so what the fuck makes you think I know anything about it? And you're not even helping with your fucking holier than thou attitude, so just shut up!"

Now she was crying, and she didn't even care. She was lost in a strange country she didn't have any right to even be in, while federal agents were still trying to find her for the crime of trying to help someone she didn't even like.

She expected Loki to say something biting about how he could actually do better, but he didn't. Instead, he surprised her by climbing into the back and getting the hell away from her. He started going through the bags she'd put back there with him when she thought he was going to sleep for the whole trip, and he could eat the whole damn lot of it if it would keep him quiet for the rest of the trip. She didn't even care anymore. All Darcy cared about was getting away and getting somewhere safe and not having to deal with any of it any again.

She tried to wipe her tears away as the road she was on ended in a T-junction. It was completely hopeless, and she didn't even know why she thought she could do this.

"I don't know what to do," she said pathetically.

Loki came back into the front and offered her a bottle of soda she hadn't even realised he'd grabbed, and she didn't even want. "You're a mess," he said.

The matter-of-fact way he said it was the final straw, and suddenly everything she'd been ignoring and shoving away came flooding forward. She was a bawling, snotty mess, and she could barely see through the tears in her eyes as she kept driving down the unfamiliar road. She was trembling so hard, she was afraid she was going to just crash the car.

"Get off the road. You're going to get us killed," Loki said, looking back over his shoulder again.

Darcy sniffed loudly and nodded. She looked for any parking lot she could find, but the road was all towering buildings on one side and trees on the other. Finally, she came to side street that branched off, and she pulled off there, parking on the side of the road. Once the car was stopped, she buried her face in her hands and tried to ignore Loki. She didn't want to do this in front of him, and now that she had, she couldn't stop. Her entire body felt wrecked and broken as she sobbed against the steering wheel, feeling more hopeless than she'd ever felt before.

Suddenly, she felt Loki move again, and by the time she looked up, he was out of the car and slamming the door behind him. She didn't know where he was going, but now he'd abandoned her and she was really fucked. There wasn't even any reason to keep going now, except to not get arrested and wind up in jail forever. But that's what was always going to happen, and she knew it. He'd decide she was useless, and after getting her in trouble with the feds, he'd just throw her to them and go out on his own.

She was hit by another wave of sobs, this one even harder than the first. She cried so hard, she didn't even have the air to do it properly. Everything hurt and nothing was going right, and sooner or later someone would see her and that would just be the end of it.

Darcy didn't know how long she'd sat and cried, when she heard the passenger door open again. She looked up sharply, expecting to see a cop, or worse, Coulson. Instead, Loki sat back down as calmly as ever and handed her the map and the soda he'd tried to give her before. Darcy was so shocked that he'd came back at all that she took both without question.

"Where did you go?" she asked weakly, not wanting to admit to even herself that she was glad to see his stupid snakey face.

"To find a local," Loki answered.

Darcy drew a shaky breath and looked at the map to find that someone had helpfully written down directions for how to get to where she needed to be. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or to cry, and kind of did both. She wiped her face dry with her sleeve and nodded as she read the directions Loki had somehow managed to talk someone into writing down. She didn't even want to think about how he'd managed that.

Suddenly feeling very thirsty, she opened the soda -- some horrid, generic orange thing -- and drank half of it in one go. She was still trembling, and her chest still felt tight, but she didn't feel quite like everything was just a big, giant hopeless lost cause of a mess.

"You should rest," Loki said unexpectedly.

Darcy almost laughed. "Can you drive?" she asked sceptically.

He shrugged. "It can't be that difficult. You can do it," he said.

Darcy did laugh that time, though she didn't have the energy to make it much more than a gasp. "No, you are not getting behind the wheel ever," she said. 

Loki shrugged and sat back in his seat. He still looked like road kill, but at least he looked like well-rested road kill. And maybe it was just the haze of snot and tears in her eyes, but he didn't seem as angry as he had earlier. It must have been one hell of a nap he took, and Darcy wished she could take one herself. 

"Just give me a few minutes, okay," she said, pulling her hair away from her face and trying to compose herself.

Loki didn't say anything, which was as good as an agreement from him. Darcy yanked on the rear view mirror so she could see herself in it, frowning immediately when her stupid new hair colour caught her eye. Sighing and leaning back into her seat, pushed the mirror back into a working position and tried to fix her hair without looking at it. Out of nowhere, Loki reached over with both hands and decided to just mess it up all over again, but Darcy put up with it, assuming he was just being his obnoxious childish self. She ignored him and kept trying to fix her hair until she felt calm and in control of the situation once more, before she looked at the map again and started to read the directions Loki had been given. They were long and complicated, and looked like whoever he asked had to get them off Google, which was only further confirmation of just how lost they were.

"Are you any good at pick-pocketing?" Darcy asked, surprising even herself.

Loki looked over at her dubiously. "Why?"

She didn't answer. She didn't want to resort to it, but knew she might have to if they were going to survive this. Instead, she took a steadying breath and got back onto the main road, ready to try again.


	35. Chapter 35

Somehow, driving across Canada's hellish, frozen wasteland seemed a lot less hopeless after Darcy had got everything out of her system and bawled herself dry. She felt wrung out and hollow, but in an almost comfortable way. As soon as they were out of Edmonton, Loki fell asleep again, which was exactly what they both needed.

Darcy still couldn't understand why he came back. He must have known how lost they truly were, and that his survival chances were zero if he tried to go out on his own.

Of course, he could have also just carjacked a local if he really wanted to get out of Canada quickly. Except he didn't know where he needed to go any more than the theoretical local would have.

Knowing that Loki needed Darcy as much as she needed him at this point was just one more thing she decided not to think about. 

She followed the highway, watching out for any cars at all. There wasn't really anybody out there at all, and with the snow coming down in buckets, Darcy wasn't surprised. She could feel her tyres slipping every now and then, and drove way under the posted speed limit just to make sure she stayed on the road. Instead of suspicious SUVs, she was looking out for anything furry that decided to dart across the road. She kept reminding herself that if she did see Thumper, she was going to just have to run his fluffy little ass over. But if she saw Bambi, she realised she wasn't actually sure what she was supposed to do. The Taurus had a low front end, and that deer would probably just roll right up it and come crashing through the windshield if she hit it. But if she tried to swerve, she'd probably wind up rolling right off the road. Even at the speed she was going, hitting the brakes wouldn't do anything to slow her down at all. 

"Fuck," she said out loud, hoping she didn't see any deer on the road.

"Are you lost again?" Loki asked tiredly. 

"No," she said, wondering when he woke up. "I can't remember if I'm supposed to run over the deer or try to swerve away from it."

Loki sat up and looked out the window. "What deer?" he asked.

"The hypothetical deer that could hypothetically jump out in front of me at any moment," Darcy told him. "We don't exactly get a lot of deer in Queens, so it was just a footnote when I took my test."

"Which queens?" Loki asked, still looking around in confusion.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep," Darcy told him.

Loki did nothing of the sort. He yawned loudly and sat up instead, apparently done sleeping now that the sun was starting to go down. Darcy kind of wished he did know how to drive, since he'd probably be awake all night anyway. If the road conditions weren't so god fucking awful, she'd have been tempted to teach him. She still was kind of tempted even with the god fucking awful road conditions. 

"I need food," Loki declared randomly.

"We got food in the back," Darcy reminded him.

"Real food."

Darcy sighed, having expected this to happen. He'd only grabbed processed junk, and she was too stressed out to stop anywhere while they were in Edmonton.

"Well, make do with what we have," she told him. "I'm hoping to find a place to stop soon anyway, because I really need to pee, and I'm not popping a squat in the snow unless I have to."

That did the trick. Loki gave her an annoyed look and climbed back over the seat. Instead of staying in the back, he just brought everything up front, piling it all out onto his lap while he inspected it. 

While he did that, Darcy kept a look out for any helpful signs that weren't completely buried. There were crossroads often enough, but they always seemed to go nowhere. She wasn't expecting to find a Little Caesar's or anything just out there on the side of the endless road, but she thought she might see at least a gas station.

While Loki emptied out a bag of Doritos, Darcy spotted an actual off-ramp up ahead. Assuming an off-ramp meant there would be something nearby making too much traffic to safely get across the highway at a crossroad, Darcy took it. Not actually seeing any traffic anywhere, she stopped right in the middle of the intersection where the off-ramp and the crossroad met, and looked down the road in both directions. She wasn't sure, but she thought she saw something town-like just beyond the overpass, so that's where she decided to go. Sure enough, she quickly came to a town, and the very first building she saw was a Shell station. Not wasting any time at all, she pulled into the parking lot and ran inside to find out if there was a key for the bathroom. On her way out, just to be safe, she put down another fifteen dollars for gas, since she had no idea when the next stop would be.

After she got her change, she ran back outside to move the car and top off the tank.

"After this, we'll look around and see if there's a restaurant or something," she told Loki through the open door.

He was too busy trying to brush Dorito crumbs off his chest to notice her, apparently. But that didn't stop her.

"After that, I don't know. We can stay here since it's getting dark, or we can keep going and hope there's somewhere else to stop later," she said.

"Keep going," Loki said, making it sound like an order. Darcy wasn't sure how she felt about taking orders from someone covered in orange Dorito dust. "If we stop, it will be to camp. We're found out every time we rest anywhere civilised."

Darcy sighed deeply, knowing he had a point, but hating the idea of camping when it was so ball-blistering cold out. "Okay," she agreed.

When she finished pumping the gas, she got back into the car and drove out to the road, heading further into town. She expected to repeat their game in Calgary, and have to drive around endlessly until she found something, but her search was over almost as soon as it started.

"Aw, yeah. Motherfucking Pizza Hut," she said, pulling into the parking lot. It wasn't Little Caesar's, but it would do. "You wanna come in with me?"

She looked over at Loki, somehow not surprised to see him still fighting to get the Dorito dust off of him.

"Never mind. Stay in the car," she said, trying not to laugh at him, and failing. She left him behind and walked into the building, not even feeling guilty for the absurd order she was about to place. She knew that whatever she ordered, Loki would manage to eat almost all of it, so she grabbed four of their largest pizzas, plus a whole bunch of bottled water and bread sticks. And some chicken. And a pasta bowl, because she knew it would probably be the last time she ever got to eat pasta again.

She stayed inside while she waited for the order to finish, still not able to feel bad about the size of it. After checking out the window for about the tenth time to make sure Loki hadn't blown himself up or something, Darcy managed to convince herself that he was fine out there, and turned her attention back to waiting for everything to get done.

When it was finally all handed over the counter, Darcy suddenly rethought her entire plan. She hadn't realised how much stuff she'd actually ordered, and didn't exactly have the hands to carry it all. And of course, Loki was passed out again, or else pretending to be, so Darcy gave the kid behind the counter a helpless smile as she looked at the heaping stack of everything.

"Do you think you can help me carry it out to my car?" she asked.

The kid looked at her, and then out at the car and shrugged. He ran into the back, and returned wearing a huge coat, before picking up the pizzas and two of the water bottles. Darcy grabbed the rest of it and led the way outside, deciding that the best place to put it all would be in the back.

"Dinner," she announced as she opened the door.

Loki sat up like he'd been electrocuted and looked around, sending a glare at Darcy. It was a quick-lived glare, and died as soon as he saw the stack of food being settled into the bed behind him. Without offering to help, or even offering his thanks, Loki grabbed the top pizza box for himself and ignored everything else around him.

When everything was settled, Darcy shut the door and dug into her pocket again.

"Thanks," she said, handing the Pizza Hut kid twenty bucks. "Don't tell anyone. Our secret."

She smiled at him again as she got into the car, and waved as she pulled back onto the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes on Dreamwidth, if you want them:
> 
> http://loki-of-sassgaard.dreamwidth.org/53153.html


	36. Chapter 36

Eating pasta with one hand while trying to drive down a frozen stretch of road in the dark was not one of Darcy's most well-thought-out plans. Luckily, the pasta came with a lid, and she was even able to convince Loki to put it back on for her, and to hand her the breadsticks instead. Miraculously, he didn't even eat any of it. Even more miraculously, his complaining was limited strictly to glowering as he handed her the paper bag from the pile in the back seat. Breadsticks were much easier to eat while driving down the frozen stretch of road in the dark, not to mention warm through the bag, making them the ideal munchie food. 

"I spy, with my little eye..." Darcy looked around, not seeing much at all to spy. "Something green."

"What?" Loki asked. He'd already devoured his first pizza, and was halfway through the second. Asgardians had to have black holes in their stomachs. Darcy was convinced.

"It's a game," she said. "I see something green. Saw something green. You have to guess what it is."

"Childish," Loki said. Darcy expected him to give in and guess anyway, but all he cared about was the food in front of him.

"Oh, come on. You have to play," Darcy practically begged. Her day had seriously sucked from the moment she woke up, and she didn't even care if she was being childish. She wanted to play I Spy.

"I spy you shutting up," Loki said, before stuffing his face again.

Darcy cackled, and almost choked on her breadstick. "Oh my god, what the hell? Be nice."

Loki apparently decided ignoring her was preferable to being nice. He munched on his pizza and watched out the window as they passed by miles of blackened nothing. The only thing Darcy could see in front of them was falling snow, and the occasional flicker of reflective paint on the road. She had seriously misjudged this plan, and had regretted not staying in town from the moment they left. She probably could have convinced Loki to stay if she tried, but at the time she had been feeling good and didn't want to argue. She should have argued. The wind was starting to kick up in addition to heavier snow, and driving was definitely a two-handed, full concentration job. She dropped her breadstick back into the bag and planted both hands on the steering wheel at the ten-and-two position she almost never actually used.

"Put your seatbelt on," Darcy said, not looking over to Loki. Even though she wasn't watching him, she could still tell that he wasn't listening. "Loki, put your seatbelt on. I mean it."

He still didn't listen, and chose instead to turn around to toss the empty pizza box into the back. While he was still turned around and fishing about for something else, wind and frozen tarmac conspired with one another, and a sheet of dry snow swept across the road, nearly taking the car with it. Darcy yanked hard on the wheel to stay in her lane, and for a treacherous second, thought she'd over corrected. The car swerved sharply, but she held it together, just barely. Loki fell back into his seat, glaring around at anything he could find to glare at.

"Put your seatbelt on," Darcy told him again.

This time, he listened. He sat back in his seat and watched out the window like he expected to see whatever had tried to push them off the road. 

"Perhaps we ought to--"

He never got the chance to finish that sentence. Or if he did, Darcy didn't hear it. The car hit another sheet of dry snow, taking the car halfway into the oncoming lane. Darcy tried to correct against it, and suddenly found more traction than she expected. The car swerved sharply to the right, and when she tried to control the skid, she only hit more dry snow and lost control completely. The car went straight over the oncoming lane, and into a tall drift on the other side of the highway. For being so light and fluffy, hitting it was like hitting a brick wall, even without the airbag punching her in the face and trying to break her nose. Darcy leaned back in her seat, covering her face with both her hands, and tried to figure out if she was bleeding. It took her a few seconds to even register Loki next to her, fighting off his airbag and seatbelt like a maniac.

"Ow," Darcy said stiffly.

"What did you do that for?" Loki demanded, finally getting free of his seatbelt.

Darcy sighed. "It's called weather. Don't you have it in space?" Her face hurt too much to deal with anything, but she knew she had to deal with the fact that she had just spectacularly crashed. She fumbled around for the hazard lights, knowing they'd be useless to anyone in the lane most likely to hit them. If they were lucky, the lights would reflect off the snow to alert any westbound motorists about to run right into them.

Forcing herself to move, Darcy tried to pull the airbag away and got a good look at where they were. The car was still running, so she dropped it into reverse and tried to back out of the snow. But as well as hitting the snowbank, the car had also found itself in a ditch, and the front wheels only spun uselessly without any traction. Even with the pedal all the way on the floor, the car didn't even move.

Sighing defeatedly, Darcy cut the ignition, but left the battery connected so the hazard lights would keep blinking.

"Why have you stopped? Get us out of here," Loki said, apparently thinking she was magic as well.

"You said you wanted to camp. We're camping," Darcy said. Sighing, she climbed into the back and got out through one of the back doors, since they weren't blocked in by snow. She was surprised at just how far off the road she'd gone. She thought she was still half on the tarmac, at least, but they weren't even anywhere close.

At least they weren't likely to get run into by a passing truck. Taking that one crumb of comfort, Darcy quickly got back into the car and reached straight for her unfinished pasta, since she at least had both her hands free and could eat it without disaster. There'd already been disaster, so it didn't even matter. She just sat cross-legged in the back of the car and ate like there was nothing wrong at all. A perfect end to the world's worst day.

"This is your idea of camping?" Loki asked incredulously.

Darcy kind of wanted to hit him. "This is my idea of crashing," she said around a mouthful of vaguely-warm pasta. "Be glad you put on your seatbelt, or else there'd be a you-shaped hole in the windshield right now."

She could feel Loki glaring at her, but she didn't care. She didn't want to camp, especially on the side of the road in a crashed car, but she didn't have a choice. And neither did Loki, so he could just suck it.


	37. Chapter 37

Darcy wasn't sure when she stopped trembling from having crashed, and when she started shivering from the cold. She wanted to turn the engine back on so she could turn on the heater, but on the extremely off chance someone drove by before the battery died and the hazard lights stopped blinking, she wanted to make sure there was actually gas in the tank to drive away. To eliminate the temptation, she stayed in the back, huddled up in one of the blankets as she watched out the window for any sign of life. All she saw was snow swirling around in the blinking lights, building up on the sloped windows of the car. For about the twentieth time, she checked the clock on the dash, before remembering that it was wrong, and definitely not 4:30pm. 

"This sucks," she said, trying to keep her teeth from clattering together.

Loki still sat up front, annoyed with her for crashing. Like it was her fault the weather sucked. Darcy looked up at him, shaking her head at him for not even pretending to be cold.

"Are you even still alive? How have you not frozen to death yet?" she asked. She pulled the blanket closer around herself and huddled against the wheel well. "I'm gonna freeze to death if something doesn't happen pretty soon."

She eyed the heater again, forcing herself to look away before she did something dumb. The heater was for when it she was absolutely going to freeze to death, and not to be wasted before then.

"God, I'm so sick of being cold. Why couldn't you have done this in the summer?" she grumbled quietly.

Loki moved around in his seat, and Darcy could practically hear him rolling his eyes when he looked back at her. Sighing loudly, Loki climbed back to the bed and started pulling her blanket away.

"What, no! Stop," Darcy said, slapping at him.

Loki grabbed both her wrists tightly in one hand and held her so he could take the blanket away. She thrashed and tried to kick, but he didn't seem to notice, and only let go of her once he'd pushed and pulled her around so he could sit behind her. She went to reach for the blanket, but he wrapped it back around both of them and pulled her close to his chest, both his arms wrapped around her to hold her uncomfortably tight.

"Shut up," he said. "Say one more word and I will throw you outside." 

He sighed again and leaned back against the wall, pulling her with him. Darcy sat stiffly, letting herself be moved where he wanted, too terrified to dare even try to resist. She hadn't thought this far ahead, and had half assumed that she'd be able to talk him into staying at a hotel where there would at least be two beds, or a floor to make Loki sleep on that wasn't right next to her. But she couldn't get any more than about six feet away from him at any time in the car, and couldn't even get away from him at all the way he held onto her. His grip around her chest was threatening to make it even more difficult to breathe than the fear of being held down by him already was. Not to mention, he was seriously copping a feel with his left hand, and not even trying to be subtle about it. Darcy tried to pretend that he wasn't, but she could feel his dick starting to swell against her back. She wanted to cry all over again, but bit it back in case that was enough to make him lock her outside. She wondered if that would be worse than whatever would happen if she stayed inside.

She could feel Loki shaking his head behind her, even as his grip slowly loosened. Darcy had to stop herself from fleeing to the other side of the car, knowing she'd only wind up in an even worse position if she did.

"That's better," Loki said, keeping his hand latched firmly to her tit.

"Is it?" Darcy squeaked. Some treacherous part of her pointed out that at least she wasn't cold anymore. Never mind that it was because she was too terrified to be cold. That was beside the point.

She ignored his hand, and focused on the important thing. That whether it was from the blood rush and terror of being held down, or just from the closeness between them, Darcy didn't feel quite so cold anymore. It was still freezing in the car, but she didn't feel like she was going to just shatter from shivering too hard. For that, she was almost willing to put up with being felt up by an escaped alien lunatic. She even tried to relax a bit, letting herself lean against Loki's chest as he held her next to him. When she finally gave in and relaxed her head against his chest, she realised he was still only wearing a t-shirt. And maybe it was just in contrast to the ball-blistering chill in the air, but the little bit of his skin she could feel against her own almost felt warm. She wanted to ask if he was starting to feel better, but kept the thought to herself in case it pissed him off and made him leave. She'd never really noticed with Thor, but after so much time spent with Loki already, she had started to suspect that maybe people were just colder on their planet than they were on Earth. Maybe it was completely normal for them to feel like they lived inside a walk-in refrigerator.

They sat silent for a long time, listening to the gentle tick of the blinking hazard lights and the wind buffeting against the car.

"I can turn on the heater," she said finally, thinking through her options out loud. "But if someone comes along and pulls us out, we probably won't have enough gas to get to the next town. If I don't turn on the heater, I don't think we have enough blankets to not freeze to death before someone sees us here."

There was a question in her words, but she was too afraid to ask it. She was too afraid of how Loki might respond if she did, or how sick it would make him if he actually obliged.

"Ask me," Loki said, making it sound almost like a demand. Almost like he wanted her to ask him so he'd have an excuse to do something. It was a tone that made Darcy not want to ask, despite not having much of a choice.

"Can you do something so I'm not so cold?" she asked, forcing each word even as her throat closed up around them.

Loki shifted behind her, bringing her attention back to his dick pressing against her. Darcy closed her eyes and only barely managed not to squirm away. "I meant with your super powers," she said.

The sound Loki made wasn't quite a laugh, but it was close. "As did I," he said smugly. "Performing magic on another being isn't as simple as saying a few words and waving your fingers. You need to make it stick."

Darcy kept her eyes closed and tried not to think about it. But she still had his dried blood on her chest, and remembered how he said that the magic wasn't meant to be used on people. And now according to Loki, she had to either fuck him or freeze to death. It wasn't much of a choice, but she knew she wouldn't exactly have the option of choosing anyway. Even without the threat of becoming a human popsicle, she knew she couldn't exactly say no. Not stuck in a car with nowhere to go.

"Fine. Whatever." It wasn't fine, but at least saying that it was made her feel like she had some tiny bit of control over the situation. She ignored the way Loki chuckled behind her, and turned her head to stare at the swirling snow in the blinking lights outside. She expected a rough and violent affair, but he took his time like he was making sure he enjoyed it. Darcy tried not to listen to the things he said as he moved on top of her. She didn't help with anything, but she forced herself not to fight back as well. It would be easier to just let him do what he wanted and then try to forget it ever happened.

"Relax, and you may even find this enjoyable," he said as he pulled one of the blankets over them, so at least Darcy didn't have to lie there completely exposed and cold.

She turned to look away, not caring what he wanted her to do. Something about the whole thing seemed deeply amusing to Loki, but Darcy didn't care about that either. When Loki moved his hands under her shirt, she expected him to pull everything off, but he didn't. Apparently he could get his grope on just as well without stripping her completely naked and putting her on display. Darcy tried to see that as a positive. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes as Loki moved away to reach for her pants, which he did take off. She focused on breathing and refused to let herself cry. She wasn't going to let the bastard think he'd won any more than he already had. 

It hurt worse than she expected it to, but far less than it could have. Again, she expected him to be rough and violent, but he wasn't. He really was enjoying it, and Darcy very nearly lost her battle to remain quiet. At least if he had been rough, he might have got it over with quickly, but she knew he had no intention of that. Worse, she could feel her body start to respond to his before long, but forced herself still. Her mind was screaming at her to fight back, while her hips wanted to do something else entirely, and fighting against both was starting to strain her ever muscle.

"Relax," Loki said again, before bringing his mouth to hers. She kept her teeth clenched tightly to keep his tongue out of her mouth, but he somehow managed to overpower her with just his mouth alone.

Darcy wondered what would happen if she bit his tongue, and knew it would be nothing good. She almost tried it anyway, but she felt something distinct and different start to overwhelm her. For the first time since she could remember, she was warm. She didn't just feel warm because she had forgotten the freezing temperature around her; it was something inside her that had made the freezing temperature seem to almost go away; like they were parked somewhere in the middle of summer. Even as she lay there while Loki fucked her, she wondered if she might have avoided all her troubles had she just let him fuck her before, while they were still in New Mexico.

She wondered whether if Loki's magic could make her warm, it could also be why part of her wanted to enjoy what was happening; if he was why she felt like she might actually come if he kept going like he was. 

"You're hurting my hip," she said finally.

Loki paused just long enough to shift his weight, and that was all it took. She was going to come while being fucked by a psychopath in the back of a Ford Taurus in the middle of nowhere. Loki apparently noticed, and before Darcy knew it, he rolled over so she was on top of him, with his arms around her waist and his face buried in her chest. She let herself ride out her orgasm, ignoring how she wrapped her arms around his shoulders for better leverage. She was pretty sure she could hear him laughing again, but she ignored that too.

It turned out, Loki wasn't even close to done after that. Apparently gods weren't exactly quick in the sack. At least then, it was easier to take his advice and just let herself enjoy it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes, if you want them:
> 
> http://loki-of-sassgaard.dreamwidth.org/57273.html


	38. Chapter 38

Something woke Darcy, though she wasn't sure what it was. She was bundled up in every layer of clothing she had available, under all the blankets they had, with Loki behind her, holding her close to his chest. She could feel his breath on her neck, and it took a moment to realise that he wasn't actually squeezing her to death intentionally, but that his arm was just that heavy. She breathed slowly, wanting to close her eyes and go back to sleep despite everything, because whatever Loki had done the night before had already started to wear off. His magic hadn't been as good as he'd claimed, but it had kept her alive through the night, without needing to run the gas tank dry to keep the heater on. She wasn't exactly warm, but at least she wasn't freezing, either. Just in danger of being squashed to death by Loki's arm over her stomach. As she tried to wriggle away, something loud pounded against the window behind her, sending both of them into a shock. Darcy tensed and tried to sit up, but Loki fought against it, pulling her even closer and actually squeezing the air out of her. She slapped him a few times before he let go, and they both turned blearily and confused toward the knocking. A man stood outside, looking frantic and oddly relieved. Scrambling over Loki, Darcy reached over to unlock and open the door, wishing she'd slept in her shoes as well. 

"Oh my god, thank you Jesus," she said, waving her hands around before shutting the door again to find her boots.

After pulling them on, she shimmied out of the car and through the waist-deep snow to meet the man out on what she assumed was the road.

"Holy shit, you just saved our lives, not even joking," she said, wondering if she should hug him.

"Yeah, no kidding. When'd you go off?" he asked.

Darcy looked around, not able to tell what time of day it was, other than day. 

"Last night. We hit some wind, and some ice, and well." She shrugged and looked over at the guy's empty flatbed truck. "We could kind of use some help getting out." She looked back at the car, noticing the lack of blinking hazards and cringing. "And maybe a jump." 

The truck driver nodded and looked into the car again. "You two all right? Your fella looks like he's not doing too good."

Darcy had to bite her tongue to keep from loudly insisting that Loki wasn't her fella. She looked in at him, and realised the truck driver was right, though. Loki looked just as bad as he did when she'd first found him out in the desert. It occurred to her that she could easily cut and run, and leave him behind since he looked like he barely had the energy to even object, let alone fight back. He just sat there in the back of the car, having trouble keeping his eyes open and staying upright. She could just leave. Disappear on her own. And then--

And then what? Undo everything she had already gone through so much hell to do? Just leave him to die in the snow, or for SHIELD to find him and take him back and cut pieces out of him again?

Part of her said he deserved it. Another part of her thought that sounded like government spook rationale. She'd known the risks when she first let him into her car. You don't take in a wild animal without expecting to get bitten, just like you don't take in an alien fugitive without expecting... whatever. Taking a deep breath, and knowing she would come to regret it, she nodded. 

"Yeah, he's been really sick all week. I don't think last night helped, either," she said.

Not for the cold. She was convinced Loki couldn't even feel the cold. But whatever he had done to keep her from freezing to death had obviously set him back again. He'd sure seemed like he'd been enjoying himself the night before, but now it looked like he regretted it as much as she did.

"Well, let's get you back on the road. Here, help with the chain."

Darcy knocked off as much snow from the back of the car as she could so she could find a place to hook the chain. She couldn't see anything that looked appropriate, so she got back into the car to put it into neutral while the truck driver hooked everything up. 

"Can you start it, sweetheart?" he called out.

Darcy shook her head and turned around to shout back. "No, my battery's completely flat. I had the hazards on because I couldn't tell how far off the road we were, and didn't want someone to hit us."

The driver nodded and went back to his truck. Darcy couldn't help with the engine, but she could make sure the wheels were at least turned the right way to try to make it easier to get pulled out of the snow.

"Loki, why don't you come sit up here?" Darcy said as the car lurched from the strain of being pulled.

Loki shook his head and fell back over onto his side. Not sure what else to do about him, Darcy let him wallow in misery and focused on trying to get unstuck. She rocked back and forth in her seat as if it would help, but the car still only lurched and jerked. After a few more moments of it, the truck behind them stopped running, and Darcy watched in the mirror as the driver got out and reached into the bed. When she saw what he grabbed, she got out to help shovel as much of the snow away as possible. It took them almost an hour, by her reckoning, to get enough of the snow out of the way, or else packed into a hard ramp. This time, when they tried again, the car lurched and fought for a few seconds before finally being pulled loose and dragged back up to the road. Once they were on flat ground again, the driver got out to unhook his chain, and then turned around to get close enough for a jump. Between the cold and the utter flatness of the battery, Darcy half expected it wouldn't start at all. She watched out ther window, hoping the friendly truck driver wasn't paying too much attention to how she started the car. But he mercifully seemed too busy with jump leads and his own truck to notice he was helping start a stolen and hotwired car. They had to try more than a few times, before the Ford's engine finally coughed and sputtered to life. Darcy breathed a deep sigh of relief and rolled down the window while the friendly truck driver retrieved his leads and slammed the hood down.

"Oh my god. Thank you so much," she said.

The truck driver nodded, and then pointed into the back of the car. "You two get somewhere warm. You might want to think about stopping in a hotel, if you're going too much farther."

"Yeah, I think we might. Thank you again."

She waited for him to get back in his truck and turn to head back toward Calgary or wherever before she put the car into gear and continued on eastward. As soon as they were moving again, she turned on the heater and cranked it to its highest setting. Even if it did blast out cold air, she knew it was only a matter of time before it started heating up, and that alone brightened her mood.

She drove in silence for a few hours, ignoring Loki in the back until she realised how hungry she was, and that he was probably starving again. Having no idea when the next town would be, she just pulled over to the side of the road and kept the engine running while she grabbed the rest of their very cold pizza. Acutely aware that she was doing something potentially stupid, she popped the hood and took the pizza outside and set it on the engine to warm up. Afraid that the box would catch fire before too long, or that she might get poisoned from eating the fumes, she only kept it on for a few minutes. It no longer seemed frozen, so it would have to do.

"Hey, breakfast," she said as she got back into the car. She turned to shake Loki awake, making sure he actually sat up a bit before stopping.

Taking the first slice of pizza for herself, she offered him the box, and was strangely glad when he sat up the rest of the way to take it. The pizza wasn't freezing anymore, but it was still cold and tasted like car. Darcy was at least hungry enough to ignore both disgusting qualities. As she ate, she watched Loki scrunch up his nose as he pulled all the green peppers off the pizza before he ate it. When Darcy finished hers, she sighed deeply and started to put her thoughts together. There were a thousand questions she wanted to ask, but none she dared even try to vocalise. She was pretty sure she didn't even want answers to most of them anyway. The rest, she thought she might already know the answers to. Like how someone had seen their supposedly-invisible car, even when it was half buried in the snow. She could ask Loki to fix that, but something told her it might actually kill him. If not for as far as they'd already come, she might have said he'd deserve it.

"So. I don't know how much further we have to go, or how long it will take. And when we get there, there's a whole other problem," she said, thinking out loud.

Loki grunted, which Darcy assumed meant he was listening.

"I don't know how to get in contact with the people we're supposed to meet. I don't even know who we're supposed to be meeting," she said.

Loki quit eating and sighed tiredly. "How much further to Tórshavn?" he asked.

Darcy shrugged uselessly. "I don't know. We're still in Canada. We've still got days left, probably."

"Can you get me to Tórshavn?" Loki asked, sounding both hopeless and impatient at the same time.

"Yeah. Probably, if I can get back in contact with the people," Darcy told him. She looked out the window at the already darkening sky and silently despaired. "I kind of want to stop if we don't get there soon. In a hotel, if we can find one."

"No," Loki said sharply.

"Yes." She turned to look at him, able to see the dark rings under his eyes and his utter lack of complexion. "You're sick. I don't want to freeze to death. If I don't see signs that we're almost there by the time it starts getting dark, I'm going to start looking for a hotel."

Loki didn't say anything, which Darcy figured was his version of relenting. She gave him a few more minutes to sit and sulk while she pulled out the map and traced their path along the marked highway. Using one of the highlighters to rougly measure the distance, and going off of the odometer on the car, she figured they had to be getting close.

"Well. Can you read, at least?" she asked. He didn't seem like he'd been able to before, but Thor had been able to read English while he was on Earth, and Loki seemed like he'd at least healed from his time with SHIELD or SWORD or whatever.

"I don't know. Maybe," Loki said after a moment.

"Kay. Because if I had someone to read out the signs for me while I'm paying attention to the weather, I might be able to go a little more quickly," Darcy reasoned. It was difficult enough to see the signs as it was, and keeping an eye out for them while also watching for ice was not the easiest thing she had ever done.

To her surprise, Loki nodded and brought the pizza with him to the front seat, and even buckled up without being told. He batted at the deflated airbag for a bit while Darcy pulled back onto the road.

"Do you see the one that's circled in pink?" she asked. "Winnipeg?"

"Uh." Loki picked up the map and glared at it, like he was trying to force his brain to work after spending two straight days writing a midterm paper. "Yes," he said finally.

"That's what I'm looking for. If you see any signs that say that, tell me the number that comes after it," Darcy said.

Loki nodded slowly, still glaring down at the map. "Fine," he said.


	39. Chapter 39

Darcy had expected Loki to fall asleep on the job, but not quite as quickly as he did.  Luckily, she spotted the sign that said Winnipeg was about 200 kilometers away.  Which, she realised, told her exactly nothing, because she had no idea how long a kilometer was.  The sun was still in the sky, although quite low on the horizon, and she definitely was not looking forward to another night on the side of the road.  

Making up her mind, she nudged Loki awake again.  "Hey.  Wake up," she said.

Loki grumbled at her and tried to stay asleep, but she wouldn't let him.

"Hey, so.  It's still a long-ass way away, I think.  I'm gonna keep going until I start getting tired or the weather turns to shit again, and then I am finding a hotel and pulling over," she said, hoping she sounded like she wasn't about to take any of his shit.  She wasn't sure what she'd do if he made them camp again.

"No," Loki said.  "No stopping."

"Yes, stopping.  I don't want to freeze to death because you want to camp," Darcy said.  "And then where would you be?  You'd stranded, with nobody to take you to fucking Norway or whatever, that's where."

Darcy decided she really enjoyed seeing him sulk, even if she could only watch it out of the corner of her eye.  

"Fine," he said finally.

Darcy nodded and checked the map again, making sure she stayed on the right road and didn't make any stupid wrong turns that would take her to the North Pole or something.  She tried to hold the map against the steering wheel, so she could see both it and the road in front of her, but she wasn't as good at dividing her attention as she thought she'd be.  Darcy hadn't realised how difficult going on the run was without having someone else do all the driving.  She would be very glad to ditch their stolen car and hand the reins over to someone else again.  Just being the passenger in all this drama had been stressful enough, but she was pretty sure she might actually die from the stress if she had to do another day's driving in Canada.

"Okay, I need you to keep watching out for signs again," she said.

"You said it was still a long journey," Loki argued.

"I said I think.  I don't know," Darcy told him.  "It's all in kilometers up here, whatever the hell a kilometer is.  Two hundred could be another two days, or twenty minutes, for all I know."

Loki looked out the window, and then snatched the map away.

"No, hey.  I need that," Darcy said.  "Unless you want to tell me where to turn as well?"

He looked down at the map, frowned at it, and tossed it back.  Trying to keep control of the car and pick the map up, Dacy nodded over her shoulder.  "I got you some chips and some juice if you're hungry," she said, knowing he would be.

"Got them where?" asked Loki suspiciously.

"At a gas station.  You were asleep, and I didn't want to wake you up."

Loki watched her suspiciously for a moment, but it was rather undercut by how sick he looked.  Darcy was starting to think that if she was going to get Loki to Norway or whatever alive, that they'd have to be more careful.  Every time he used his magic, it nearly killed him.  Like he was using it faster than whatever made his magic work could heal; like going out to play football on a broken leg.  Darcy wondered if his magic came from part of whatever they'd hacked apart in his brain, or if it was in any of the other cuts she'd cleaned up.  As if, without knowing it, she'd cleaned up the wounds from some sort of experimental organ removal, with government scientists trying to see which pieces of himself Loki could live without. 

Darcy remembered those cuts, and where they all were. And she knew that was exactly what the government scientists were doing.  They'd try couch it in terms of trying to find a new medicine, but that new medicine would be thirty years off and $200 a pill.

As Loki turned to reach over the seat for the carrier bag, Darcy couldn't help but see the hurt, terrified person she'd brought into her hotel room.  The person who had no idea where he was who was immediately locked away and treated like an animal.  The person who had been hacked apart and vivesected alive, and managed to escape from it.

Darcy suddenly realised that any lead they'd gained in Calgary would be lost by now.  SHIELD were still hunting them, and they wanted Loki back.  They wanted to put Darcy in a cage for helping him escape.  And if SHIELD caught them, they'd finish what they'd started with Loki, and tear every last part of him out.  Probably, Darcy thought grimly, while he was still alive and conscious.  She wondered how many mutants had disappeared off the streets to be cut open and dissected in the name of scientific research.  And even though she'd always been inclinded to dismiss it as urban legend before, she was certain Loki wasn't the first alien to have crashed on Earth to be cut up and studied.  They probably already had pieces of him growing in a jar somewhere.

"The first thing we're going to do is ditch the fuck out of this car," Darcy declared firmly.  "Then I need an internet connection so I can figure out what to do after that."

"A what?" Loki asked around a mouthful of Pringles.

"It's like, computer magic," Darcy said.  

"It isn't magic.  Your race hasn't the knowledge," Loki told her with an irritating amount of certainty.

"I said it's like magic.  I don't know how to explain it.  A series of tubes.  Whatever."  She shruged and peered out into the distance to see if she could find any road signs.  She couldn't.

Loki acted like he had no idea what she was talking about, which Darcy realised probably wasn't an act.  She tried to remind herself that Loki wasn't from Earth, and needed even basic things explained to him.  And probably not because they were such complicated concepts, but because his planet was so advanced, it would be like Darcy trying to finish her math homework with an abacus instead of her TI-84.

"It's so I can get back in contact with the people that are supposed to be helping us.  It's a communication tool," she explained.

If Loki cared, he didn't show it.

"You looked at porn on it," Darcy reminded him. 

Still, he remained more interested in pizza-flavoured Pringles than anything she said.  Sighing, Darcy shook her head and drove on, watching the side of the road for any more signs.  As the sun sank below the horizon, the wind began to pick up again, but it was still light compared to the night before.  Nothing felt like it was going to shove the car into the next lane.  Trying to remain calm, Darcy remained mindful of the wind, but didn't focus on it.

Once Loki was done devouring the entire can of Pringles, he reached over and snatched up the map again.  This time, he actually took the time to look at it, squinting at it in the dark for a few moments before looking out at the white landscape around them.

"This is the road we're on?" he asked, glaring at the map again.

Darcy didn't look away from the road.  "The pink one?  Yeah," she said.

Loki glared at it a moment longer before looking back out at the terrain again.  Darcy kept waiting for him to magically figure out how much longer they had before they got to Winnipeg, but he said nothing.  They both stayed quiet, neither saying a word after that.

"One hundred fifty," Loki said flatly after about a half hour.

Darcy had seen the sign, but she hadn't paid enough attention to it to read it.  After the night before, she was too busy focusing on everything else.

"Seriously?" she asked.  "We've done fifty kilometers already?"

She had to fight the urge to turn around, knowing that the sign wouldn't have anything written on the back of it.  Instead, she looked at the blinking clock on the dash, trying to figure out what time it really was.  The early sunsets so far north kept confusing her, but she didn't think it could be much later than 6pm.

"If the weather behaves, we should be able to get there in like, two hours," she said hopefully.

Loki kept his attention out the window and sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes here, if you want them: https://lokiofsassgaard.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/chapter-notes-trickster-god/


	40. Chapter 40

It wasn't Winnipeg, but it was close.  Darcy hadn't quite figured out what a kilometer was in relation to miles, but if she had to guess, she thought they were maybe ten miles from Winnipeg's city limit.  And that was good enough for her.  She left the highway and found somewhere dark to park the car.  Looking around at everything, she sighed and grabbed one of the blankets before opening the door.

"Put your shoes on.  We're walking from here," she told Loki.

"Where are we?" Loki demanded.

Darcy shrugged.  "I don't know.  I need to find an internet connection so we can find out."

Sighing heavily, Loki got dressed against the cold, only looking more miserable for it.  He pulled on his boots, and reached behind the seat to grab the last of the snacks from behind him before getting out of the car.

They walked down the road, slowly making their way to a more populated area.  Darcy looked around them, looking out for anyone who might have been following them.  She didn't see anybody, but knew that still didn't mean there was nothing there.

As they came to a long park, Darcy noticed a younger guy with white earbud headphones walking slowly in front of them.  She had a pair of those headphones, and knew there was only one reason on the planet anybody would ever tolerate them.

"He has a phone that can get online," she said quietly.  She couldn't believe what she was saying, or what she was subtly suggesting.  She'd actually become that kind of person.  But she also knew they didn't have many other options.

"We need it," she said, defeat heavy in her voice.

Loki looked around.  It was dark and cold, and nobody else was on the street near them.  Loki handed Darcy the carrier bag and broke away, quickly catching up to the guy ahead of them.  He moved silently and swiftly, even in the snow, and caught up to the other guy in just a few seconds.  Darcy had expected him to try to pick the guy's pocket, or maybe just rough him up.  But Loki didn't even give him a chance to notice him.  He reached forward and took the guy's head in his hands, twisting his neck so hard, Darcy could hear the crack from where she stood.  She covered her mouth with her hands to keep from screaming, but couldn't look away as Loki let the guy drop to the ground, before digging through his pockets.  After a few moments, he pulled the square, black device from the guy's pants and held it up.  Seeing the iPhone, Darcy nodded weakly.  Loki brought it back to her like a trophy, like a smug cat who just killed a mouse in the kitchen.  Darcy took it, feeling sick, and slid it into her pocket.  She looked at the lifeless body on the sidewalk ahead of them, and then at the footprints leading back and forth from him.

"Loki," she said, pointing down at their tracks.  "They'll be able to find us."

Loki frowned and looked down at the tracks as well.

"Damnit," he growled, looking around.  Without warning, he grabbed Darcy and pulled her close against his chest.  Darcy knew what he was doing, and knew what it was going to do to him, but she didn't argue.  She closed her eyes against the flash of green, only opening them when she felt the ground beneath her feet again.  Loki felt heavy against her, as he tried to stay on his feet without completely crushing her under his weight.

"Woah, easy," she said, trying to steady him.

They hadn't gone very far; he'd only taken them to the far end of the long park, but even that had been enough to wear him down and make him look sick again.  Holding her hand flat against his chest, Darcy tried to lead him away from the park and into the parking lot nearby.  The parking lot joined with a second one for a hotel, just off the highway they'd driven into town on.  Darcy led Loki to a dark wall along the hotel and sat down on the ground, wrapping the blanket around both of them.  Biting her lip, she pulled out the dead man's iPhone and pulled up Safari.

There were a few ways she could have got the attention she needed, but they were all dangerous.  SHIELD was probably watching all of them.  Knowing she didn't have a choice, Darcy typed an IP address into the bar, and scrolled through the Reddit-style message board.  She started typing her message nearly half a dozen times, deleting it again and again before deciding on the best way to code it.

_Our guide dog got taken in Alberta.  We made it to our next stop without her, but can't see well enough without a new one.  Please help._

Darcy knew it was transparent to anyone reading it, but it was all she knew how to do.  She wasn't a spy, or some master hacker who knew how to live under the radar.  She was just a college burnout, forced into a terrible situation she didn't know how to get out of.

She kept refreshing the page, wondering how long the phone's battery would survive.  When a comment appeared below hers a few minutes later, she almost jumped at the shock.

_I have a spare.  I'll bring him round tonight._

Darcy covered her mouth with both hands and tried not to cry.  The wave of relief that flooded over her was so powerful, she felt she might choke on it.  Getting herself together, Darcy tapped out a vague reply, hoping the person on the other end would be able to figure out where she was.  

"Hey," she said, nudging Loki with her elbow.  "Someone's gonna come get us.  But do you think you can get us out of here in a hurry if we need to?"

Loki swallowed heavily and stared at the snow in front of them, staying silent.  Darcy figured that probably meant he couldn't, and didn't want to admit it.  She didn't want to think about what that would mean for them if the person who responded to her message wasn't their next point of contact.  She knew there was every possibility that it wouldn't be; that SHIELD was listening in, and rather than following them in their big, black SUVs, tracking them down online.

They waited in the dark for what felt like hours, listening for any sound that might be someone approaching them.  At one point, Darcy could hear distant sirens.  She tensed knowing they were coming for her, but the wailing only grew more and more faint until it faded completely.  Every car engine, ever footstep was someone coming to arrest her and throw her in jail forever.  When a little red 4x4 slowly turned around the hotel and stopped and rolled down its window about ten feet away, Darcy grabbed Loki tightly, ready to run.

"Alberta?" the guy behind the wheel asked.

"Yeah," Darcy said hesitantly.

"Get in.  Quick," said the driver, looking around the parking lot nervously.

Darcy pulled Loki to encourage him to get to his feet and nudged him toward the little jeep.  Loki climbed in, but Darcy hesitated at the door.  Thinking for a moment, she took the iPhone back out of her pocket and put it on the ground in front of the rear tyre before getting in beside Loki.  She could hear the phone crunch on the ground as they started to move forward, and was surprisingly glad to be rid of it.

She was surprised when they turned back onto the highway and started heading the way they had come.

"Uh," she said, looking out at the street.

"SHIELD knows you're here.  We're leaving town for a little bit.  If we're lucky, they'll think we left the other way," the driver said.

A few minutes later, they got off the highway and onto another, heading north.  Darcy watched as the little city disappeared, replaced by open land and snow once again.  Beside her, Loki slept quietly, still wrapped up in the blanket.  Unable to help herself, Darcy reached out and felt his forehead.  Even though by now, she knew it was normal for him, it still worried her to feel his cold skin against hers.  

"He needs to eat something," Darcy said, still watching him.  "All he's had since I found him is junk food.  That's probably not helping him."

She could see the driver nod.  "He's the one who escaped, then?" he asked.

"Yeah," Darcy said.  "I still don't know how."

She could see the guy watching them in the mirror, but she couldn't see enough of his face to know what he was thinking.  

"How does SHIELD have jurisdiction up here?" Darcy asked, looking out the window behind her, in case someone was following them.  

"Because it's not an American organisation.  It's run by the World Security Council," the driver answered.  "They're just headquartered in America."

"Huh," Darcy said, wondering how that even worked.  "Do you guys have your own branch, then?"

"No, we just use yours," the driver said, sounding weirdly bitter.  Darcy realised the bitterness probably wasn't about having to share, but rather about SHIELD being allowed into Canada at all.

The highway took a wide turn toward the east, but they didn't stay on it long after that.  They took a long offramp onto another northbound highway, which eventually took them to a small town out in the middle of nowhere.

The two of them helped Loki out of the car and into a small house, leading him to a bedroom in the back.

"I'll let you get him settled," their rescuer said, staying in the doorway while Darcy tried to keep Loki on his feet long enough to get to the bed.  "I'll try to find you guys something to eat."

"Thanks," Darcy said.

She got Loki to the bed, knowing once he got there, he probably wouldn't move.  As she got up to go help in the kitchen, Loki grabbed her wrist and pulled her down to sit on the bed.

"Ow, stop ow!" she said, fighting back against his inhuman grip.  "Fine, I'll stay here."

Loki loosened his grip on her wrist, but he didn't let go.  Sighing, Darcy looked around the room, trying to assess her options.  Finding none, she shoved Loki closer to the centre of the bed.

"Move over at least, so I can lay down too," she said.

To her surprise, Loki did.  He still held on to her, as if afraid she was going to abandon him, but didn't fight against her at least, as she was trying to get comfortable.  She was acutely aware of how close to him she was again, and how he held onto her to keep her from getting away.  But Darcy tried not to think about it.  Instead, she reminded herself that he was sick and scared, and tried to convince herself that he just didn't want to be left alone.  He didn't have the energy to do anything, she told herself.  But she only started to believe it when she heard him start quietly snoring again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes are here: http://wp.me/p6PrMM-u


	41. Chapter 41

Darcy was surprised that she had managed to fall asleep. When the bedroom door opened and woke her up, she looked around, taking a moment to remember where she was. Loki still had his death grip on her, but he was in a deep enough sleep that she was able to shove and poke him into letting go.

"Get off of me," she grumbled, managing to move his arm off of her stomach so she wasn't being uncomfortably suffocated.

She shoved him hard a few more times until he started to wake up. "And move over."

Loki grumbled and started to sit up, but stopped still when he saw they weren't alone in the room. Darcy held her hand against his chest, hoping it was enough to keep him from springing up and ringing their host's neck.

"All right?" he asked, still standing in the doorway. He held two plates of dinner, which both Loki and Darcy noticed at the same time.

"Yeah," Darcy said, sitting up a little better.  
    
Loki followed suit, trying to look dignified while his dinner was served to him in bed. They had fish, and some pasta, and some salad that looked like it came out of a bag.

"Oh my god, salad," Darcy said, stabbing it greedily with her fork. She hadn't realised how much she'd been missing fresh, green vegetables in her life until that moment.

"Thanks, uh... dude," she said as she ate.

"Mike," he answered. 

"Mike," Darcy repeated. "I'm Darcy. The bitchy one's Loki, but he probably won't respond. He doesn't really like people much." She shrugged apologetically, having a good idea why he tended to not like people.

Almost to prove her point, Loki was too busy stuffing his face to even bother paying attention to the conversation. For a moment, he reminded Darcy of Thor, the first time she'd met him – stuffing his face with pancakes at a New Mexico diner. That seemed like it had been years ago, but in reality, it had been little more than a month past.

"He seems to like you," Mike observed, leaning against the doorway.

Darcy looked over at Loki again, but didn't notice anything that looked like "like." He looked hungry and exhausted, and those black circles were under his eyes again.

"Because someone needs to put up with him," she said.

Mike laughed. Darcy hadn't meant it as a joke.

She glanced at Loki again, wondering if he could even understand her. Sometimes, she thought when he got sick enough, he stopped being able to. He hadn't been very talkative all day, and had even less to say after they left the park. Darcy didn't want to think about why they had left the park.

"You heard what they did to him right?" she asked.

Mike nodded. "I saw the reports, yeah. You probably haven't seen yet, but they're getting out there. A couple of news stations have even started running them."

Darcy blinked. That wasn't at all what she'd expected to hear. "What? Then why is SHIELD still chasing us, if everyone knows what's going on?"

"Because they're also saying he blew up an entire town," Mike said.

"Thor's the one who created the giant tornado," Darcy said before she could stop herself. "I mean, it was nuts. Don't get me wrong. But the town is very much still there."

"You were there for it?" Mike asked.

Darcy nodded. "Yeah. He wasn't the only one from his planet that was there. He's just the only one who got caught."

"I was the only one to get thrown back," Loki corrected menacingly.

"Is that what happened?" Darcy asked, looking back at him. He was glaring at his plate and clutching his fork so tightly, Darcy expected it to bend.

"My brother hurled me into an abyss. It was my own bad luck to end up back here," Loki said.

Darcy couldn't argue with him on the last point. She wanted to reach out and try to comfort him, but she didn't dare. Not when he looked like he might actually bite her hand off if she tried to touch him.

Mike also seemed able to take a hint, and reached for the door again.

"You guys need anything else, or do you just want to finish eating and go to bed?" he asked.

Darcy considered asking for a second bedroom, or at least for the sofa, but she knew Loki wouldn't let her leave. And if she did, he'd just follow her wherever she did go. So she shook her head.

"Just bed, I think," she said. "And thanks. Again. I seriously thought we were fucked for a while, there."

Mike nodded. "I'll keep my ear to the ground. Next train out of town is the day after tomorrow. Hopefully, we can put you on it."

"Okay," Darcy said, wondering where the train was going to take them next, and why it didn't run every day. "Thanks."

Mike shut the door and left them alone. With him gone, Darcy became acutely aware of how close to Loki she was. The bed was big enough for two, but Loki still managed to take up most of it. But at least while he was eating, he kept his hands to himself.

"How you doing?" Darcy asked hesitantly.

Loki responded with a grumble as he finished off his pasta.

"That bad, huh?" Darcy said. She looked down at her own plate and realised that she had not eaten a proper meal in days. Before she knew it, she had cleared her plate, and was vaguely wishing for more. Sighing, she took Loki's empty plate from him and started to get up, but he grabbed her wrist again and tried to pull her back down.

"Ow, no!" she snapped, pulling against him and struggling to keep her balance. "I'm just taking these out to the kitchen. I'll be right back."

Loki reluctantly let go, watching her intently as she left the room. Mike had disappeared into another part of the house, leaving the kitchen empty. Darcy put the plates into the sink, and vaguely considered trying to sleep on the sofa anyway. But she knew Loki wouldn't like it, and didn't want to deal with however he decided to manifest that, so with a sigh, she returned to the bedroom to find him still glaring.

"Move over," she said tiredly. "I don't want to fall off."

She shut off the light and walked over to the bed, trying to encourage Loki to move out of her way by shoving him. Eventually, he got the hint and moved to the other side of the bed. For a moment, Darcy hesitated beside the bed. She didn't really want to sleep wearing multiple layers of clothes, but she felt like all the clothes were protection; like maybe if she wore enough, she'd actually be able to get some sleep. Knowing that what would really happen would be that she'd wake up in the middle of the night, feeling like she was sleeping in a furnace, she stripped down to her T-shirt, and sat down to take off her shoes and socks. She still felt weirdly exposed, but it still seemed like the more immediately comfortable option.

"Stay on your side," she grumbled as she climbed under the blankets. Realising that Loki had stayed on top of them, and probably would, she felt a little more relaxed. But that relaxed feeling evaporated immediately, when Loki rolled over and pulled her into another death grip. 

Darcy reminded herself that he was scared, and that if he lost her, he was stranded and screwed. He didn't know where he was going, or how to use the most basic technology, or even have the patience to talk to most people. He'd probably just assume everyone was SHIELD and leave a trail of bodies circling the globe, if SHIELD didn't catch him first.

"Not so tight. I can't breathe," Darcy complained, trying to push his arm away.

To her surprise, Loki actually moved his arm, so his death grip circled her hips instead of her stomach. Even though he still held her tightly, he at least wasn't squeezing the life out of her in doing so. Sighing and knowing that it was the best she was going to get, Darcy tried to go back to sleep.

–

Loki slept well into the day, but Darcy had managed to slip away and wander into the living room late in the morning. She watched the news channels, flipping through them to see what was being talked about. The guy Loki had killed had been found, but police had no leads or suspects, which Darcy figured was a good thing. They didn't need another reason to be chased. She ignored the guilt, even as it tried to overwhelm her. Loki did what he had to do to keep them from getting caught.

Eventually, she found a cable news channel, and was surprised to find a panel of angry correspondents arguing about the definition of human rights. She didn't have to stick around long to figure out what they were really talking about. She recognised one of the correspondents – a bespectacled black man – from similar segments about mutant rights, and his stance here was the same. He struggled to maintain his composure as he ranted about the US government taking liberties they had no right to take, while at the same time stripping them away from those deemed not human enough to count. 

Darcy watched almost eagerly, remembering that this was why she had gone in for a PoliSci degree in the first place. That this had been happening for decades, and people – herself included – were finally getting fed up with it. For a few brief moments, she had even forgotten that this wasn't a debate about mutant rights at all, until one of the women on the three-way split-screen brought up the leaked SWORD documents, using them to point out that the person in question wasn't even a person at all. Human rights, she argued, only applied to humans.

"He is a fucking person, you dumb cunt!" Darcy shouted at the screen. 

The outrage that someone would actually take SHIELD's side on this actually burned. Darcy could feel her skin grow hot and her stomach turn sour as the television debate raged on. People were actually taking SHIELD's side, and believing the spin they were told, even with everything Kevin had stolen, highlighting in black and white what they had done. When the debate circled round to what had happened in New Mexico, everyone ignored the official report entirely, focusing only on Loki's involvement. No mention of Thor or his friends was made. It was as if everybody, regardless of what side they were on, wanted the world to think Loki had just come down in his giant death robot to lay waste to humanity. Darcy covered her face with both her hands and screamed at it all. Everyone was lying, and nobody cared about the actual truth.

Able to take no more of it, Darcy picked up the remote and slammed her thumb into the power button. She had to get away from aliens and political correspondents alike. She picked up the blanket she was huddled in and wrapped it around herself before walking to the back door. She stood out on the porch, looking at the undisturbed snow covering the yard, and wondered what she was even going to do. SHIELD had caught up with them and Loki was still sick, and not getting better. And now, there was no doubt in her mind that if they were caught, Loki would be locked away in some cage until he became more useful to them as a collection of body parts in jars. She hated him for everything; hated him for coming into her life and taking her away and everything he had done to her. But she hated SHIELD even more. She hated SHIELD because even with everything Loki had done, both to her and to everyone else, they'd never put him in jail, where he probably belonged. They'd take him to a lab somewhere, deep underground.

Loki did deserve to be in jail. Darcy knew that. He'd killed people. But if she let him be taken by SHIELD, she thought she might as well just give up on everything she believed in. The only way she could ever live with herself would be to help him leave this planet, and hope he never returned. And maybe, wherever he went, the people there would know him for what he was and lock him in one of their prisons.

She stood where she was, her thoughts going in circles like this, just waiting to hear the wail of sirens signalling they'd been caught. But the sirens never came. The sun continued to drift across the sky, climbing ever higher behind the thin, grey clouds. Darcy had always wanted to visit Canada. She just never thought it would be like this.


End file.
